SUMMARY: The children & educators together decided to create a song of cooking pancake. The words that provided by children were somehow interesting as they were relating to a rhyme “Pat a Cake.” Children tried to add in some tune to it to make it more fun.

CONNECTION TO ASSESSMENT 2: 

Music with Pancake related to me on country walk where I see pancake in moon and its delicious taste carries you to a different world. 

WHAT WENT WELL

Children co-ordinated with their peers and educators to create their music(song writing) for creating a pancake and instruments to use. As the song evolved around pancake the children used spatulas, steel bowls to make sounds. The song goes like this:

Crack!!  Crack an egg, add some flour & butter, Stir it faster, 

Pop it on pan, don’t worry if it sticks to pan … round and round, 1, 2, flip it and eat it if u can.

WHAT WENT EXPECTED

Children showed teamwork and enjoyed song writing and music for making a pancake.  Children were talking, having fun while giving suggestions for music writing and talking about how they enjoyed pancakes with their families. Some children discussed how they eat vegetable pancakes on weekends. The discussion also involved who cooks at home, who cooks best, how they love honey or berries or maple syrup or ice-cream with their pancake.

WHAT DID NOT GO EXPECTED

We lost focus during the music creation as the mat time went on bit longer.

WHAT WOULD YOU DO DIFFERENT

I would involve children more in movement to keep it interactive and meaningful.

Metaphorically, the entire learning space is an atelier.

CONNECTION TO ASSESSMENT 2: As we talked about pancake on my country walk, it involves the natural items that move and swayed to provide different impression and perspective to our sight.

SUMMARY: Children use their body as instruments or materials to sing, dance, use other instruments.

WHAT WENT WELL

The children moved their body with wording of the song to sync it. 

WHAT WENT EXPECTED

Everyone followed the words and matched them with the music or song. For example: stir – the children used their hands to stir pretending to hold on the bowl with other hand

WHAT DID NOT GO EXPECTED 

Children’s movement with objects sometime lead them to forget the words of music , but we went with the flow. Children created their own versions of song and tune and synced with their movements.

WHAT WOULD YOU DO DIFFERENT 

Providing children their own space and time to observe, initiate innovative thinking and creativity. And they can communicate and be expressive in artistic way.

PHILOSOPHY PERSPECTIVE

According to Reggio Emilia, learning happens both individually and in group. Hence, we as educators need to provide space to children to engage in discussion, collaborative work and pursue their interests.

RATIONAL:  Play based learning and incorporating music and drama into the play can enhance social, cognitive development , concept developing, language development. A musical play with movement can enhance and can create a dramatic experience to the play. Pancake in the sandpit reflects various movement of children that contributed to the storyline with their music Children do have natural abilities to learn and develop musical skills and abilities through play.

SUMMARY: 

Malaguzzi stated “What children learn does not follow as an automatic result from what is taught, rather, it is in large part due to the children's own doing, as a consequence of their activities and our resources.” Malaguzzi(1994)

Children creating their family musical play in the sand pit using pots , sand , twigs, leaves. The pretended leaves to be eggs and strawberries, sand to be the mixture and twigs to be the milk. During the play, children were conversing how much to add to the mixture and sang the song that we practices before. They were mixing, moving, singing with actions in the sandpit. This really helped children to enjoy what they were doing, learn what they were doing indoors. The space, environment, free will made them great story tellers, content writer. Children were descriptive about their pancake being sweet, warm or cold. 

WHAT WENT WELL 

The experience was not planned. It was independently played by children while playing in the sand pit. So, the choices made by children made the experience more interactive, fun and engaging.

They were moving their bodies during the process of making pancake- they were twirling while getting the pancake mix ready and singing with it. There was music, movement, and drama with expressions.

WHAT WENT EXPECTED 

Children were in sync on their own, without any directions. They followed each other -one step  led to the other. And they created a story of pancake.

WHAT DID NOT GO EXPECTED

I would not change anything in it as the children chose the play.

WHAT WOULD YOU DO DIFFERENT

Encouraging children to have more musical play that will connect them with objects, space, environment and their peers.

PHILOSOPHY PERSPECTIVE

As we watched Mutton Bird(2008), there was drama in the movements of those artists also telling us to stay connected with our tradition and culture. 

The pancake concept brought an overall discussion among children what they eat , how they eat. In the sandpit, not only pancake various food were introduced with a personal touch from children. 

This sandpit dramatic play provided a scaffolded children learning to another level. Educators and peers became play partners , it provided an opportunity for us to get a glimpse children’s world.

In this unit of ECE2008, Music, Movement and Drama in the Early Years, it was an eye-opening experience for me. 

Music, has always been an integral part of everyone lives. In each culture, race we find it in form of lullabies, rhymes, chanting, story-telling, prayers and so on. But deeply thinking, when we try to sooth a baby to sleep, we don’t talk to them we sing a lullaby. Lullaby relaxes one’s brain. Our brain understands those musical waves. The direct connectivity with brain proves music is language. As Victor Wotten said “Music as a language, is full emotions, way of expressing ourselves. 

A baby moves his hands or legs as part of gross motor skill and trying to achieve a milestone. But when they clap hands to the sound of music, they understand the music and respond to it.

This makes me wonder why do I find peaceful when I go to mountains, hill side areas, to beaches or on a nature walk. I never realised but it was the sound of nature, bird singing, hustling and rustling of leaves and bushes, roaring sound of crashing waves that were music to my ears. If we are saying music is language so what are they trying to say? Why do I feel connected to those places? Is it because of sound or something happening at those places that I have been overlooking?

As stories goes by Aboriginal people, to know yourself & environment LISTEN to nature, observe the movements happening in nature and understand the drama happening in front of you. Our lives relate to nature. We need to be present in that space to feel and perceive it. That is how we build a connection with the place

As I keep thinking, what I have learnt from the unit, how do we can implement, encourage children to feel connected with their oneself and environment? Do we understand their movement and drama? Are we utilising our senses to perceive whatever drama, movement happening around us?

We all know music in early years have high importance in children’s learning, social skills, personality, confidence, building.  But introduction of a space where they can freely discover themselves and learn individually and collectively. A space that provides an artistic, dramatic influence can lead to existence of a parallel world. 

For example, during circle time, with kinder children rather asking them to sit in a circle, we sing tippytoes in fast and slow and come in a circle. We hold hands together and dance “Ringa Ringa Roses” before sitting in circle. Or we pretend to to be sailing in sea of sand during packing up the sand pit.

 

Children like to move and they learn when they move/play. Using their senses to listen, observe events and the environment they develop a creative mindset. They create a connection with the help of their senses either visual, auditory or the feeling itself. We cannot intentionally teach to be creative but we can provide children to be connected with nature. And nature play provides those opportunities for children to listen and observe music, dance, movement, drama and connect with those temporal arts languages. If they can hold a pencil and draw then they can pretend that pencil to be a magic wand. A moving branch can be a flying dinosaur. A river can be flowing ice-cream. Their dramatic play opens a parallel world that goes beyond anyone’s imagination. As Regio Emilia stated environment is the third teacher. We observe them without interrupting rather participating.

As we talked about senses that helps us feel connected with the place the importance of music in nature and in our life doesn’t decline. Music significantly encouraged children or people with physical disabilities a new meaning to life. There are various ways that someone can feel music like vibration created from instruments, listening to breathing pattern, observing their body movements or any visual cues.

Reggio Emilia suggests that every child has at least, “one hundred languages” available for expressing perspectives of the world, and one of those languages is music. Encouraging musical play, they are building connection with nature, environment, swaying with wind, branches and creating a story and music becomes their language. A Reggio-inspired music atelier: Opening the door between visual arts ... (2013).