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My digital visual journal is about music and movement in Early Childhood from personal, social, and philosophical perspectives. It is related to the languages of movement, music, drama, and visual arts and how it is important for early childhood education. Artistic exploration is a great way for children to gain confidence by finding and manipulating materials. If we focus on the process and exploration of materials such as paints, toilet paper, clay, and cloth, we can help children to use their imagination to express their ideas.

My session starts with collecting examples for my artistic explorations. My artistic explorations include paper, assembling paints from spices, exploring the viscosity and texture of paper, waste clothes and and some other waste materials. During the whole session, I tried to make my own instrument, listened to nature, tried to play with texture and paper craft.

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The story of a thread coated with paint moving over paper

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The story of a thread coated with paint moving over paper

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Connection to unit reading-
Painting is a great way to develop fine motor skills in children and strengthen grasp and manual control. There is no specific way to paint with string, and no one can predict what the artwork will look like, so this is a great activity to help a child to create their art. The strings need a precise grip, and different paint effects can be obtained depending on how the child handles the strings. Children can move the thread in any direction and can observe something new every time. It will enhance their observation power.
Art is not a form of inferior linguistic communication, rather it has different objectives. They enable expression and communication in different ways such as non-linguistic and expressive ways (Roy, Baker & Hamilton 2015).

Reflection-
As an early childhood educator, for tuning my teaching practice to the language of art, it might be helpful to give myself opportunity to investigate the qualities and characteristics of an art medium (Pelo 2016). I will provide children some different colours and encourage them to explore it, feel different textures, how does it looks like on different kind of surface such as paper, wood, floor and on their hands.

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Connection to unit reading-
Early in life, children learn a lot about themselves and the world around them, and parents are their first teachers. They learn to communicate through their actions and body movement. Music, movement is the easiest mode for children to communicate their feelings. At the early age of their life when children are not able to speak then they learn to communicate through music, body movement, etc. They listen to different sounds make their imagination and try to explore it. In the book 'The children's music studio' by Wendell Hanna (2017). There are several advantages of play-based music learning including social, affective and cognitive development as well as gross and fine motor control and hand-eye coordination.

Reflection-
Music is a universal spoken language, and it can be universally understood. Just like any other subject science, math, arts, music, and movement play an important role in a child's development and have many benefits. Music and movement help them to develop their self-confidence and imagination. It also allow them to learn new words and concepts. I explore various activities such as rhymes, making noises with household items, and singing songs so that children can listen and learn from them. I used household items for drumming and tried to explore rhythm and to practice an important pre-writing skill. I grab any household items like a coffee can, make my drum, and create different sounds from it.

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How materials have been used in unexpected ways

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A story of a realistic doll in children's development.

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A story of a realistic doll in children's development.

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Connection to unit reading-
When children starts getting excited about writing or drawing on a paper, they become interested in representation. They begin to make some straight lines and keep moving their pencil on the paper. They end up with some basic shapes such as circle and rectangle. When they continue their creativity they try to change their shapes into facial expressions which makes them more innovative and happy while drawing. According to (Topal & Gandini 1999) it is clearly stated that encounters with different materials gives children many ideas and spark connections. In this artefact I used some old clothes and make a realistic doll with a smile on her face.

Reflection-
What I actually have learnt after making this evaluation for my ECE setting is to offer exciting clothes to children, I can give youngsters a precious gift by way of offering the proper cloth at the right time to discover. To do this I realised that I need to be attuned to the children by means of listening them.

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How paper folding in different ways important for children art and craft

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How paper folding in different ways important for children art and craft

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Connection to unit reading-
Paper craft is a type of art. The importance of material like paper is one of the most important, fundamental, and practical aspects of art.  I used a single piece of paper to create this lantern by folding this piece of paper in different ways. In book Encounters with Materials (2016), writers described that in early childhood education, materials are closely connected to making, as we do it we see them as movements. And movement with paper is both rhythm and repetition. Children can make a different type of craft with paper movement like the model of a building, night lamp or three-dimensional structure by using paper movement.

Reflection-
Paper craft activities are one of the best activities that help children indulge in creativity and expression. This activity may not require many complex tools such as brushes, sketch pens, and knowledge of how to use them, all we need is a piece of paper. It will also strengthen the geometrical knowledge of children and enhances innovation and creative abilities among them. It is a good opportunity for children to create what they want to innovate. I never thought that paper art and movement is such an important art material until I played with paper.

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How paper cutting changes a paper into different things

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How paper cutting changes a paper into different things

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Connection to unit reading-
I draw some small circles on the colourful paper and then cut them around the edges in circular shape. After that, I rolled them to observe the movement of the paper. As paper moves through time and with the world, it encounters other materials (Ketchabaw 2016, p. 40).
When the paper changing its shape, It turns into small flowers which I have used in my artefact to make a flower bucket. Tn the book Encounters with Materials (2016), paper is one of the common material that is associated with movement. The book also mentioned about the interaction of paper with water, wall, floor and children bodies. there is a rhythm in the movement which can be seen with repetition of doing, undoing, filling, emptying, covering and uncovering.

Reflection-
Paper Arts and craft movement activities helps children to develop a sense of accomplishment, pride, and self-confidence. Children will learn to make the right and effective decisions by facing and solving artistic challenges. This will help in the development of a problem-solving attitude in the future.

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-Ketchabaw, V, Kind, S, Kocher, L 2016, Encounters with Materials in Early Childhood Education, GB.

-Pelo, A 2016, The Language of Art : Inquiry-Based Studio Practices in Early Childhood Settings, USA.

-Roy, D, Baker, WJ & Hamilton, A 2015, Teaching the arts: early childhood and primary education, Cambridge University Press, Port Melbourne, VIC, pp. 11–13.

-Topal, CW & Gandini, L 1999, ‘Connections’, Beautiful stuff: learning with found materials, Davis Publications, Worcester, pp. 49–66.

-Wendell, H 2016, The children’s music studio: a Reggio-inspired approach, Oxford University Press, USA.

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What is the viscosity and texture of mixed spices colour on a paper

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What is the viscosity and texture of mixed spices colour on a paper

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Connection to reading-
By spreading this paste on paper, we can observe its viscosity.  I observe how this liquid is moving on paper and creating some unique designs. I add some more turmeric powder to it, to make its consistency a little thicker, and then again, I observe its movement on the paper. I found that every time I am making its consistency thicker, its flow makes a new pattern. It is one type of modern art.
In her book 'Language of Art' (2016), Pelo mentioned some important facts and observations done by young children with mixing colours, her book is the right motivation to invite young artists and write the reflection about the colours they have created by mixing colours.

Reflection-
Colour is very important for early childhood development. When I used it, I found that, it easily catches their eye and grabs their attention. Strong knowledge of different colours is useful in many situations that children face in their daily life and it also enhances the children's imagination. This creative art engage the children across all domains cognitive, language, social, emotional, and physical. Creative artistic activities are deliberately open, encourage divergent thinking, and support the process without paying particular attention to the product.

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It is evident from the inquiry and readings from the unit that art is very important for children to self-express and opens up possibilities. Children are generally curious from the moment they have control over their limbs, they go out into the world and see how everything works. Art is a natural activity to enhance the imagination of children.  Art and crafts allows them to express their feelings and learn about the importance of various artefacts and art across cultures and times. Movement allows children to connect concepts to action and children can learn through trial and error.