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Overall Reflection (Movement, Music and Dramatic Arts)

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Overall Reflection (Movement, Music and Dramatic Arts)

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What are Music, Movement and Dramatic Arts? This assessment confused me a bit at the start. I thought it was about how children move and their emotions and reaction to music and drama, but it’s more than this. It is how we and others might move, assume and music with children. It is how we educators can shape their learning by creating specific outdoor and indoor opportunities, different ways of understanding music, and opportunities to move, sing and play to develop children’s relationships with others. Music is a form of art that expresses one’s feelings, emotions and ideas through sound, rhythm, vibrations and movement. To reflect on our early childhood teaching practice, just like Victor approaches music as a language, I use music as a tool to communicate and interact with children, understanding their thought through the dance and songs they make and sing. It also helps to change their emotional feelings from sadness to happiness. We educators, as musicians, should be good listeners. The formidable metaphor of freedom of learning through music is added to my teachings. I can relate to Victor’s statement that music can’t be taught; it comes from within. When playing music, children’s whole body moves from the neck to the feet with a big smile and a relaxed face.

Listening to our beautiful nature in the video ‘Didirri’ enlightened my body with peace and calm. Deliberate listening helps us become more aware of our surroundings and engage with children. Just like “We cannot hurry the river”, we should let children learn at their pace. As an educator, we should be present at the moment with children by slowing down the day and just quietly exploring. Doing meditation and deep breathing with children can help relax busy minds and build a connection with them and create a calm environment.  Movement and dance are other ways of expressing ourselves and showing our feelings; it’s like speaking through movement. In a world full of sound, it’s hard to practice deep listening without feeling overwhelmed. When I first watched the Video Mutton Bird by Bangarra Education Resources, I was impacted by how these artists captured the essence of Aboriginal culture inside a contemporary dancing performance. The aspects that came strongly to my perception were how they created rhythms, movement patterns and a choreography representing nature. As teachers, when thinking about Aboriginal cultural manifestations, we need to be aware of the importance of respecting all elements, including in our practices, without making any cultural appropriation. The children should be encouraged to hear and listen properly before reacting, as it’s the best learning experience for life.

Drama is a composition presenting a story. It can be anything. Sometimes light plays a significant role in creating a drama; shadows of different things in our surroundings can do wonders. Reading and storytelling with babies and children promotes brain development and imagination, develops language and emotions, and strengthens relationships. Dramatic or pretend play was always something that should be encouraged. However, after going through this session, I greatly advocate dramatic play. For children to get creative and use our range of props, dramatic play will do a world of good for a child's development. Showing pictures and asking to make a story for it will help in children's imagination and storytelling. Children explore the sound differently. They make their music, even tapping various objects, which creates different sounds. Children use their voices as an instrument and sing the character's voices. We can sing songs and play music by creating it on our own with children's initiative by tapping our feet and crushing the dry leaves with our feet to create music. Children bang sticks together or on the pipes and walls and make their instruments by putting tiny rocks in cardboard pipes and closing them from both sides.

I absolutely loved the article (Children, creative play and the natural environment) as it widened my perspective and understanding of the importance of imaginative play, particularly within the natural environment. This article stated that outdoor or nature experiences enhance children's opportunities for nurturing all the developmental domains and learning in a unique, boundless way. As an educator, I aim to invite children to choose their own play space and connect with the world. We should do some excursions to help children connect with nature with all their senses. It increases their resilience and ability to negotiate risks. To connect with a place through movement, we should let children explore through open spaces where they can move freely. Nothing is right or wrong with the movements; the goal is to connect with the environment playfully and imaginatively. When we value children's interests, their learning got affected. It also adds to children's creative expressions and imaginative thinking. To create the whole child, they should be given space and time to freely play outdoors, which is excellent for their collaboration, creativity, inventiveness, problem-solving, coordination, physical strength and imagination. We should always give importance to pretend play or Drama and provide children with unlimited resources.

Mime encourages children or everyone to express themselves in a safe and non-judgmental environment. It is a platform to share ideas and thoughts with others, developing children's confidence and ability. Through body percussion, children explore different sounds using their bodies, like clapping, tapping, and snapping.

I will say movement, music and dramatic art all go hand in hand for the children’s learning. The experiences, which include all of them together, allow children creative expression, imagination, and thinking. Children build social, cognitive, emotional and physical skills through active and engaging practices.

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·      Anon, (2017). Movement in the Wild: Nature as Dance Partner - The Earthbody Institute. [online] Available at: https://www.theearthbodyinstitute.com/2017/03/movement-in-the-wild-nature-as-dance-partner/.

·      Australians Together 2022, The Stolen Generation, Australians Together.

·      Canada, N.F.B. of (n.d.). National Film Board of Canada. [online] National Film     Board of Canada. Available at: https://www.nfb.ca/.

·      Easy to Make Puppets for Pretend Play. (2020, October 16). Preschool Toolkit. https://preschooltoolkit.com/blog/homemade-puppets-preschool/

·      Hamm, C 2015, ‘Walking with place: Storying reconciliation pedagogies in early childhood education’, Canadian Children, vol. 40, no. 2, Canadian Association for Young Children, Calgary, pp. 56–66, viewed <https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=shib&db=ehh&AN=117176256&site=ehost-live&custid=s1145751>.ISSN: 0833-7519

·      Jungle and Rainforest Sound Effects - Tropical Forest Ambiences from Costa Rica. (n.d.). Www.youtube.com. Retrieved March 14, 2023, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rc4dHR3Ang0&t=1s

·      MiriamRoseFoundation. (2017). DADIRRI (Official Miriam-Rose Ungunmerr Video) :: 3 minute promo. In YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tow2tR_ezL8

·      Relaxation Film. (2021). Forest 4K Nature Relaxation Film | Relaxing Music | Nature Sounds of Jungle, Rainforest. In YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzVvThhjAKw

·      The Importance of Pretend Play in Natural Settings. (n.d.). Www.communityplaythings.com. https://www.communityplaythings.com/resources/articles/the-importance-of-pretend-play-in-natural-settings

·      TheLearningStation - Kids Songs and Nursery Rhymes. (2013). Safe and Calm for Children -- Children Meditation Song -- Children’s Songs by The Learning Station. In YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVM9JKbIIqU

·      The Mindful Senses - Light n.d., Padlet, viewed 9 March 2023, <https://victoriauniversityau.padlet.org/e5113561/the-mindful-senses-light-baa0vrodvk69u1ke>.

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Summary of learning for each session (sessions 1-8)

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Summary of learning for each session (sessions 1-8)

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Music, Movement and Dramatic Arts

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Mime is an engaging activity that encourages children or everyone to express themselves in a safe and non-judgmental environment. It is a platform to share ideas and thoughts with others, developing children's confidence and ability. Through body percussion, children explore different sounds using their bodies, like clapping, tapping, and snapping. Children learn by seeing things; they copy the actions by imitating, making a movement, and concentrating on us. The children speaking before the stillness forcibly caught their attention, and soon, they started focusing. We suddenly get the attention of all the children without saying a word. Children are equipped with conceptual growth when they construct their knowledge through their actions.

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This session is my favourite one as it contains Drama. The topic is fascinating not just for us but for children too. Whether indoors or outdoors, children can create Drama with anything. If they find a tiny leaf on the ground, with that too they can tell a story or use their imagination to play. The natural environment is like a treasure for them; it can be anything sand, branches, gun nuts, or rocks; children's imagination can do wonders with these things around. To create the whole child, they should be given space and time to freely play outdoors, which is excellent for their collaboration, creativity, inventiveness, problem-solving, coordination, physical strength and imagination. Children are natural learners who occasionally require a helping or supportive hand. We should always give importance to pretend play or Drama and provide children with unlimited resources.

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Dance is something that connects us with others and deepens our relationships; doing the movement is an excellent way of connecting our bodies and nervous systems with the infinite diversity of plants, water, rocks, sand and mud. To connect with a place through movement, we should let children explore through open spaces where they can move freely. Nothing is right or wrong with the movements; the goal is to connect with the environment playfully and imaginatively. This session taught me that imaginary play and movement are connected. When we value children's interests, their learning got affected. It also adds to children's creative expressions and imaginative thinking. Children build social, cognitive, emotional, and physical skills through active and engaging education.

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To explore this beautiful world, children should experience all their senses, because of which they will be building nerve connections in the brain's pathways, which is crucial to brain development. Environment and experiences promote learning through all eight children's senses – Listening, hearing, seeing, smell, taste, and touch; Vestibular is a sense of movement and balance, and spatial awareness and interoception connect the brain to the body. I absolutely loved the article (Children, creative play and the natural environment) as it widened my perspective and understanding of the importance of imaginative play, particularly within the natural environment. Ruth has mentioned that in creative space, children learn about themselves and the environment around them. Children who play outdoors in the natural environment are always inquisitive. They have many questions they want to explore, like what is under the ground, different plants, textures etc. Playing in the natural environment, children learn about empathy, use their imagination, and develop environmental awareness. This article stated that outdoor or nature experiences enhance children's opportunities for nurturing all the developmental domains and learning in a unique, boundless way.

As an educator, I aim to invite children to choose their own play space and connect with the world. We should do some excursions to help children connect with nature with all their senses. It increases their resilience and ability to negotiate risks.

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Music is a part of everyone's life. We introduce music into children's life when they are born and continue with it to express our love and emotions. In my childhood, our day started with the music around us. When we play or listen to music with others, it brings us all close and connected. Music also has many incredible benefits, including improving memory, attention, and concentration, increasing coordination, language and numeracy, and social skills as it brings everyone together. Children explore the sound differently. They make their music, even tapping various objects, which creates different sounds. Children use their voices as an instrument and sing the character's voices. In the childcare facility, we can sing songs and play music by creating it on our own with children's initiative by tapping our feet and crushing the dry leaves with our feet to create music. Children bang sticks together or on the pipes and walls and make their instruments by putting tiny rocks in cardboard pipes and closing them from both sides.

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Drama is a composition presenting a story. Our way of thinking can make a story in whatever way we believe, can be a happy or sad drama. It can be anything. When I listened to Healesville Sanctuary Aboriginal Soundscape, I never thought like this before about listening to the minute sounds around me; different sounds calm our minds, and every sound creates music, and by adding them, we can create Drama. Storytelling does not have to involve the presence of a book or physical text; it can be done anywhere. There is magic in the ability for people to share their stories far and wide through word of mouth. Whilst reading is a fantastic way to let an author's story run free in your mind while you submerge yourself in their world. Both ways are great for children's development. Reading and storytelling with babies and children promotes brain development and imagination, develops language and emotions, and strengthens relationships. Dramatic or pretend play was always something that should be encouraged. However, after going through this session, I greatly advocate dramatic play. For children to get creative and use our range of props, dramatic play will do a world of good for a child's development. Showing pictures and asking to make a story for it will help in children's imagination and storytelling.

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Movement and dance are other ways of expressing ourselves and showing our feelings; it is like speaking through movement. (Hearing and Listening) In a world full of sound, it is hard to practice deep listening without feeling overwhelmed. It made me realise that silence has become uncomfortable, despite never being a genuine absence of sound, just a lack of awareness. Similarly, in Oliveros's Ted Talk, the difference between hearing and listening, she talks about how 'hearing enables perception', but it is listening that 'gives attention to what is perceived'. When I first watched the Video Mutton Bird by Bangarra Education Resources, I was impacted by how these artists captured the essence of Aboriginal culture inside a contemporary dancing performance. As teachers, when thinking about Aboriginal cultural manifestations, we need to be aware of the importance of respecting all elements, including in our practices, without making any cultural appropriation. The children should be encouraged to hear and listen properly before reacting, as it is the best learning experience for life.

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Music is a form of art that expresses one's feelings, emotions and ideas through sound, rhythm, vibrations and movement. To reflect on our early childhood teaching practice, just like Victor approaches music as a language, I use music as a tool to communicate and interact with children, understanding their thought through the dance and songs they make and sing. It also helps to change their emotional feelings from sadness to happiness. Listening to our beautiful nature in the video 'Didirri' enlightened my body with peace and calm. Dr Mariam Rose reminded us that to connect, we need to listen deeply. Deliberate listening helps us become more aware of our surroundings and engage with children. Just like "We cannot hurry the river", we should let children learn at their pace. Doing meditation and deep breathing with children can help relax busy minds and build a connection with them and create a calm environment. EYLF learning outcome 4, children are confident and involved learners, is evident that children can achieve greatness and do wonders.

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When I was setting up our outdoors for this activity, the children were curious to know what am I doing. They had lots of questions about it. I told them it was something they would love to do. They were a bit confused when I placed everything in its place then, but when I pretended as a duck with a hand puppet, they joined me in this drama. Soon, I was out of this play, and they had their own drama with their friends and chatted about how this animal walks, making their sound or what they eats and had lots of others interactions. According to the philosophy of Reggio Emilia, the learning environment is the “third teacher” in early childhood education, after the two classroom teachers (Edwards, Gandini & Forman, 1998). The children collaborated, negotiated, and created complex scenarios and characters together. Children’s conversations were richer, and the groups of children playing together were larger. I would love to continue with more outdoor play to build the whole child.

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Hand puppets for our dramatic play.

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Gentle Playful Mischiefs (Assessment 2) 

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Gentle Playful Mischiefs (Assessment 2) 

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This experience connects with my assessment two, where there was chirping, quacking, and many other different creature sounds. I wanted my kinder children to experience the environment, including nature and the diverse voices of animals and birds. Yes, we can plan some excursions to take the child to a park or bush kinder will be the best for it. But with this short period of time, this will be a great experience and want children to make their own play. After reading the article in (session 7: (The Importance of Pretend Play in Natural Settings, n.d.)Let's play outside - The importance of pretend play in Natural settings), I realised how significant pretend play is in children's life. There is a growing amount of research showing that children who participate in complex, collaborative pretend play are better able to regulate their emotions and implement creative problem-solving (Hoffman & Russ, 2012)

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When you have an outdoor full of trees and greenery, it can be utilised for creating jungle drama connecting children with nature. A drama set up was done in our yard with a water tray pretended as a small lake and jungle music on our Bluetooth, spreading more leaves and branches on the ground. Hand puppets for the animals and birds were placed around the backyard, bird puppets close to the trees and others all around. I put the duck hand puppet in my right hand and pretended to walk around with a quack. Children noticed and giggled and started picking the puppets to put on their hands. They began making sounds of different animals and birds while running. The lion pretends to be the strongest, and others run away, pretending to be scared of him. Children created their own play with it. Some take their puppets to the tiny lake pretending their animals are thirsty, and others bend their animals on the ground as if they eating something. Different voices of animals could be heard in the yard with this drama created by children.

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Jungle and Rainforest Sound Effects - Tropical Forest Ambiences from Costa Rica

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We are the Jungle (Drama)

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The children didn't lie straight away for a long time; they were standing looking at the sky, but in saying that, they still seemed to take in quite a lot of their surroundings when asked the questions. They were very much involved in pointing out the shapes of clouds. After looking at the printout pictures, they all excitedly discussed and told who saw what and what animal or creature they can pretend now using their whole body with different sounds like a quack, stomping etc. Representing the same thing, I will be doing this again with the children as they got a lot out of it so did I.

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This activity relates to my assessment two experience. On my country visit, it was cloudy, and I saw clouds moving and creating many different shapes. Looking at clouds fosters observation skills and creativity as well. My experience connects with session 6 - (Anon, 2017), Movement in the Wild: Nature as Dance Partner reading.

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Luminous Clouds (Movement/Dance)

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Clouds are something that I feel offers ways to exercise children’s brains differently by offering creativity. Creativity is one of the most important forms of relaxation. For this activity, I picked a day and time when it was cloudy.  I lie down on the ground outdoors, facing up the sky. Children had questions like what am I doing? What’s in the sky? I encouraged them to lie down next to me, and most of them did it and were amazed at what they saw. I pointed at the cloud shaped like a face, and they all started telling the name of different things they saw, like dinosaurs, dogs, ballerinas, mice, eyes, space ship etc.  I photographed those beautifully shaped clouds when the children pointed them out. I printed a picture of those clouds after this experience and outlined the shapes on it using a pencil. We discussed what we saw at mat time, placing those images in the middle. Children started pointing at those shapes; some started the action or sounded those animals make or do.

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Mindfulness (sound/music)

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“I would like to acknowledge and pay respect to the past, present and future traditional custodians and elders of this nation and the continuation of cultural, spiritual and educational practices of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Ancestors have walked this country, and I acknowledge their special and unique place in our nation’s historical, cultural, and linguistic identity."

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This experience went above my expectation. When I set up this experience, I thought maybe children would giggle, talk or just walk away in the middle of this experience, but it was ultimately the opposite. Children calmly lay down and listened to my instruction while relaxing and listening to the music. As it was for the first time, I only kept it short for a few minutes. By the time we finished, the children had asked if we could continue; some wanted to lie down more and wanted to relax. I believe the time I organised this experience was when the children were a bit tired and lazy after lunch, because of which it went well. Now we have added meditation to our routine as it helps children calm down and gain their energy back.

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My country visit enlightened my body with peace and calm. I sat in one corner and listened to birds chirping, looking at them picking seeds or grains and interacting with each other; leaves and trees were moving with the slow wind, after some time, the weather changed, and clouds came out. I felt like I could stay in this zone for hours. As this experience was over the moon for me, I created the same type of understanding in a way of meditation with nature music and a calm environment which helped children visualise and engage with their senses. Mindfulness and meditation can help children recognise and cope with these pressures, releasing bad feelings gently and giving them simple tools to deal with tension and stress throughout their lives. (MiriamRoseFoundation. (2017) DADIRRI) – Inner Deep Listening and Quiet Still Awareness made me inclined to connect with our land, nature and my spirit, to focus on the minute things around me and urged me to make children experience the same.

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Music that will connect children with Nature.

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Forest 4K • Nature Relaxation Film • Peaceful Relaxing Music • 4k Video UltraHD

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(TheLearningStation - Kids Songs and Nursery Rhymes, 2013)
“Close your eyes,

Let your arms gently relax on your side or on your lap,

Notice your breathe flowing in and out,

Each breathe says I am safe and calm,

Slowly place your hands on your belly,

Breathe in and have your belly go out,

Breathe out and have your belly go in,

Relax your feet, feel then melt,

Relax your legs, feel them melt,

Relax your face feel, then melt,

Relax your eyes, feel them melt,

Thank your eyes for their gift,

Gently and slowly open your eyes,

Feel the peace down in your soul,

You are a gift to this world,

And relax.

This meditation went on for a few minutes.

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The children are always on the move, and with all the hustle and bustle, they could use some time to unplug and reset. For this, I thought of bringing nature indoors. After lunchtime, for the quiet activity, I told my kinder children that today we would do something different activity. They all got curious. I asked them to lay lie down on their back. With our Bluetooth speaker, I started relaxing and calm music which connects with nature - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzVvThhjAKw, and with a calming or soothing voice, I guided the children to continue with meditation.

Saying: