April 21, 2017

Five Reasons Why We Need Poetry in Schools

Let me start with this: We need poetry. We really do. Poetry promotes literacy, builds community, and fosters emotional resilience. It can cross boundaries that little else can. April is National Poetry Month.  Here are five reasons why we need poetry in our schools.

Reason #1: Poetry helps us know each other and build community.  Poetry can be used at the start of the year to learn about where students come from and who they are. Poetry can allow kids to paint sketches of their lives, using metaphor, imagery, and symbolic language to describe painful experiences, or parts of themselves that they're not ready to share. Poetry allows kids to put language to use-to make it serve a deep internal purpose, to break rules along the way, representation, community perhaps.

Reason #2: Poetry is rhythm and music and sounds and beats. Young children -- babies and preschoolers included -- may not understand all the words or meaning, but they'll feel the rhythms, get curious about what the sounds mean and perhaps want to create their own. It's the most kinesthetic of all literature, it's physical and full-bodied which activates your heart and soul and sometimes bypasses the traps of our minds and the outcome is that poetry moves us. Boys, too.

Reason #3: Poetry opens venues for speaking and listening, much neglected domains of a robust English Language Arts curriculum.

Reason #4: Poetry has space for English Language Learners. Furthermore, poetry is universal. ELLs can learn about or read poetry in their primary language, helping them bridge their worlds.

Reason #5: Poetry builds resilience in kids and adults; it fosters Social and Emotional Learning. A well-crafted phrase or two in a poem can help us see an experience in an entirely new way. We can gain insight that had evaded us many times, that gives us new understanding and strength.

A final suggestion about bringing poetry into your lives: don't analyze it, don't ask others to analyze it. Don't deconstruct it or try to make meaning of it. Find the poems that wake you up, that make you feel as if you've submerged yourself in a mineral hot spring or an ice bath; find the poems that make you feel (almost) irrational joy or sadness or delight. Find the poems that make you want to roll around in them or paint their colors all over your bedroom ceiling. Those are the poems you want to play with -- forget the ones that don't make sense. Find those poems that communicate with the deepest parts of your being and welcome them in.

Enjoy,

Ms. Nora Sierra

EC Assistant Principal

Discovery School

April 7, 2017

How does phonemic awareness affect reading comprehension?

Phonemic awareness relates to reading comprehension as it is the first building block of the reading process, followed by phonics instruction. It is most effective when students master phonemic awareness skills by first grade. The results of the National Reading Panel’s study of phonemic awareness instruction demonstrated that, “Teaching children to manipulate phonemes in words was highly effective across all the literacy domains and outcomes. Without being able to recognize individual sounds in words, a reader is unable to sound out words. When the learner cannot decode (or sound out) words, he or she will be unable to understand the words in the text. If the reader does not know the words in the text, he or she will be unable to create meaning, or comprehend what he or she is reading.

The National Reading Panel’s extensive research has found, “A close relationship exists between fluency and reading comprehension. The conclusion of The Panel’s meta-analysis of fluency indicates that guided oral reading procedures have had, “A consistent, and positive impact on word recognition, fluency, and comprehension,”.  Additionally, there is a common misconception that fluency is automatic for students who have strong word-recognition skills. However, a study shows that “success in decoding and reading largely depends upon the child’s phonological processing skills,”.  Researchers indicate that automacy in word recognition is contingent upon phonemic awareness and phonological processing skills.

The National Reading Panel recognizes that, “Fluency is a critical component of skilled reading,”. After students have developed a basis in phonemic awareness and phonics, they are able to read more fluently. The National Reading Panel defines, “Fluent readers can read text with speed, accuracy, and proper expression,”. Phonemic awareness leads to phonics, phonics leads to fluency, and fluency leads to comprehension. Students can only accept responsibility for one’s own reading development after mastering the first building block of reading: phonemic awareness.

Phonemic Awareness & Adolescence

According to the National Reading Panel, educators should focus on teaching phoneme blending and phoneme segmentation to produce the most effective results of phonemic awareness. Only after developing a strong foundation of phonemic awareness can a reader successfully apply phonetic principles to language to enable word decoding and encoding.

Failure to read successfully is a problem that persists throughout adolescence. According to Royer, “Many adolescents and adults who graduate from adult basic-education programs – so the thesis of the present study– fail to attain automatic word recognition and therefore must expend considerable effort to understand texts they are trying to read,”. 

Overall, all the five elements of reading—phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension—work together like the pieces of a puzzle. If one piece is missing, the reader is unable to construct adequate, accurate meaning from the text.

Enjoy,

Nora Sierra

EC Assistant Principal

Discovery School

April 3, 2017

Five things to know about music and Early Literacy

Is there a particular song that lifts your spirits every time you hear it? Or one that always brings back not-too-fond memories?

According to a study, in addition to its ability to shift our mood and tap into our emotions, when you listen to music you also work better, you can exercise harder and longer, and you experience changes in blood pressure.

But did you know introducing kids to music instruction helps them develop early language and literacy skills?

1. Music instruction strengthens listening and attention skills.

We may be born with the ability to hear, but the ability to listen is not innate. Listening involves more than just hearing. It requires children to focus their minds on the sound perceived. The ability to pay attention is also a learned skill.

2. Music instruction improves phonological awareness.

Phonological awareness is the ability to hear sounds that make up words in 

spoken language. Through phonological awareness, children learn to associate sounds with symbols, and create links to word recognition and decoding skills necessary for reading.

3. Music instruction enriches print awareness.

Most children become aware of print long before they start school. They 

see print on signs and billboards, in storybooks, magazines, and newspapers. Awareness of print concepts provides the backdrop against which reading and writing are best learned.

4. Music instruction refines auditory discrimination and increases auditory sequencing ability.

The ability to recognize differences in phonemes (auditory discrimination), and the ability to remember or reconstruct the order of items in a list or the order of sounds in a word or syllable (auditory sequencing) are necessary for learning to read.

5. Music instruction enriches vocabulary

Most kids reach a phase of repeating everything they hear – even when 

it's something inappropriate. When learning songs that they recite over and over, the words in those songs become the building blocks of their vocabulary.

Enjoy,

Ms. Nora Sierra

EC Assistant Principal

Discovery School

March 16, 2017

 3 Important Skills Needed for Reading

Rhyming Words

Rhyming words are words like rat and cat or even head and red. Rhyming words are words that have ending sounds that are similar. While there is such a thing as imperfect rhymes {words like home and bone, found in the song, “This Old Man”}, I like to focus more on the rhymes that end the same, like house/mouse or dog/frog. Rhyming words are not always spelled the same; they just need to sound the same. Here are some things we want kids to be able to do with rhyming words:

•       Recognize when words rhyme and when they don’t

•       Produce rhyming words {You ask: “What rhymes with cat?” and they answer, “Rat.”}

•       Play with rhyming words. Create a bunch of words that rhyme with the word, even silly ones.

Syllables

Syllables are the “big parts” in words. For example, words like cat or fish only have one syllable. Words like happy and table have two syllables. For those who find it tricky to hear syllables, I tell people to put their hand under their chin and count the times they “drop” their child when they say a word. Generally, this is the number of syllables the word has. Here are some things we want kids to be able to do with syllables:

•       Count the number of syllables in a word

•       Combine syllables to form a word. Example: “What word do you get when you put together the two parts, hap {pause here} py?”

•       Say the parts of a word when a syllable is dropped. For example, “What does it sound like when you say rainbow without the rain part?“

Phonemes

This is where I usually lose people. Phonemes. It sounds so teacher-y, doesn’t it? So, what exactly are phonemes? Phonemes are the

individual sounds in words. For example, the simple word cat has three phonemes {or individual sounds} /k/ – /a/ – /t/.

What makes this one a little tricky, especially for adults trying to teach phonemes, is that some words have more letters than phonemes. Take the word light, for example. While it has 5 letters, it only has three phonemes {or individual sounds}: /l/ – /i/ – /t/. We will explore more about phonemes on days 4-6 of this series. But for now, let’s see what we want kids to be able to do with phonemes:

•       Isolate phonemes, such as “What’s the first sound you hear in the word bear?”

•       Blend phonemes. For example, “I’m going to say the sounds in a word very slowly. See if you can listen to what I say and tell me what word it is: /m/-/ee/.” {me}

•       Separate phonemes. For example, “How many little sounds do you hear in the word bug?” {3}

Counting phonemes is a more advanced skill that typically comes AFTER kids have mastered rhyming and syllables. Many children will also be reading easy texts, like those found in Reading the Alphabet, before they have mastered counting and manipulating phonemes.

Phonological & Phonemic Awareness

Phonological Awareness is a broad term. It refers to the awareness of sounds in a word. A child with phonological awareness can identify and create rhyming words, count syllables in a word, or (on the smallest level) identify and manipulate individual sounds in a word.

Phonemic Awareness fits under the umbrella of phonological awareness. It is an awareness of the smallest units of sound (or phonemes) in a word. For example, a child with phonemic awareness could hear that the word bat has the sounds:  /b/  /a/  /t/. A child with keen phonemic awareness could change /h/ at the beginning of hat to /c/ and know that now, it’s the word cat.

Phonological and phonemic awareness activities are things your child can do with their eyes shut.  They only need their ear as they identify and manipulate sounds within words.

Enjoy,

Ms. Nora Sierra

EC Assistant Principal

Discovery School

March 6, 2017

Early child development sets the foundation for lifelong learning, behavior, and health. The experiences children have in early childhood shape the brain and the child’s capacity to learn, to get along with others, and to respond to daily stresses and challenges.

 Early Brain Development

There are some important concepts that help us understand early brain development:

Beginning in the last trimester of the prenatal period, brain pathways are formed by developing new connections. This growth increases after birth and follows a predictable sequence.

At birth, newborns start with very similar brains and brain structures.

There are “sensitive periods” during a child’s development, when the wiring of the brain for specific abilities is established.

Providing responsive, nurturing, and stimulating experiences establish the wiring of the brain connections. Children who are well supported and nurtured physically, emotionally, socially, and intellectually will develop a multitude of neural connections that will serve them well throughout their life course.

A child’s interest and curiosity are the motivators that create new connections to acquire new skills. Each new skill builds on a skill already learned. The child’s environment can support and enhance his interest and curiosity.

Early brain development establishes a child’s social competence, cognitive skills, emotional well-being, language, literacy skills, physical abilities and is a marker for well-being in school and life resiliency.

Domains of Development

Human development is complex and all aspects are interconnected. Yet, in most texts and writings, early human development has been artificially divided into developmental domains. This categorization can assist professionals in ensuring that all areas of the child’s development are observed and supported, thus furthering his whole development. Professionals must keep in mind that all domains or areas of development are interconnected. For example, learning to talk is usually placed in the language domain, but involves physical, social, emotional and cognitive development. In this resource, children’s development has been grouped into the following domains:

Early Learning

In the past decade, there has been considerably more interest and investment in the early years both in Canada and abroad. By supporting young children and families now, society will benefit later with “healthy, educated, confident and productive adults”.

Supporting early learning is based on the following facts and premises:

·        Children are cared for as their families provide nutrition, shelter, nurturing, stimulation and protection. The        care they receive enables children to learn and develop to their full potential with increasing influence from the world outside the family.

·        Parents want to understand how their child develops and learns. Prenatal and parenting classes, drop-in programs, home visiting and many other opportunities can be explored to support parents from various cultural, educational, geographic and socio-economic backgrounds.

·        High-quality child care settings and pre-school education improve children’s developmental outcomes. Two longitudinal studies, the High/Scope Perry Preschool project and the Carolina Abecedarian project, compared children who received high-quality, early-years programs with children who did not. When comparing the two groups of children over several decades, key differences emerged. The children who received the quality program scored higher on language, literacy, and numeracy tests throughout their schooling; finished more years of school; and had higher rates of employment. In Canada, Quebec has developed an educational program adapted from the High/Scope model that fosters full and holistic development of children through an evidence-based curriculum and has demonstrated positive results.  Other studies have also found that participation in quality early childhood education and care settings has been positively linked to child outcomes such as improved language, literacy, and numeracy development, school readiness and social skills.

·        Parent participation in early childhood education and care settings not only improves children’s development, but also strengthens families and parenting skills through connecting and sharing with other families. When parent and family involvement is planned into the early childhood education and care setting, and relationships between professionals family members are built on trust and respect, the greatest benefits are reaped. Clearly, when children have access to quality early childhood environments and experiences, it can set the stage for positive trajectories later on in life.

Enjoy,

Ms. Nora Sierra

EC Assistant Principal

nsierra@discoveryschool.edu.hn

February 28, 2017

Teaching Kids to Eat Healthy

Teaching kids to eat well can be tricky. You don’t want to give them more facts than they can grasp or turn every meal into a lecture.  If you wait too long, they could pick up unhealthy habits in the meantime.

“Kids need to know that every food they put into their bodies affects them,” says Danelle Fisher, MD, chair of pediatrics at Providence Saint John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, CA.

Parents can get that message across by talking with kids about the food they put in their bodies, why it matters, and how they can learn to make the healthiest choices.

Not just a rule, but a routine. Make sure healthy foods are the default setting for your family’s meals, and get everyone involved in choosing some nutritious, delicious options. Take kids with you to the grocery store or farmers market. Younger kids can pick out fresh fruits and veggies. Older kids can take on larger roles like choosing recipes and making a shopping list.

Show kids what “eating right” looks like. Explain that they should fill half their plate with fruits and veggies that have nutrients that will help their bodies grow. The other half should be whole grains and lean protein that gives them energy to run, dance, and play. When you’re cooking or grocery shopping, show them different examples of these key food groups.

Avoid calling foods “good” or “bad.” Kids should learn that all foods have a place in their diet. Label foods as “go,” “slow,” or “whoa.” Kids can “green light” foods like whole grains and skim milk they should have every day and “slow down” with less healthy foods like waffles. Foods with the least nutrition, such as French fries, don’t need to be off limits, but kids should stop and think twice before they eat them often.

Talk about portion size.  It’s not just what kids eat that matters, but how much. Even very young kids can learn that the amount of rice or pasta they eat should match the size of their fist. Protein should be palm-sized, and fats like butter or mayonnaise about the tip of their thumb. When you buy packaged foods, have kids help you find the serving size. Then talk about why sticking to it is a good idea.

Enjoy,

Ms. Nora Sierra

EC Assistant Principal

nsierra@discoveryschool.edu.hn

February 17, 2017

WHAT IS THE REGGIO EMILIA APPROACH?

The Reggio Emilia Approach is an innovative and inspiring approach to early childhood education which values the child as strong, capable, and resilient; rich with wonder and knowledge. Every child brings with them deep curiosity and potential and this innate curiosity drives their interest to understand their world and their place within it.

Children can construct their own learning. They are driven by their interests and their interactions with others. Children form an understanding of themselves and their place in the world through their interactions with others

There is a strong focus on social collaboration, working in groups, where each child is an equal participant, having their thoughts and questions valued. The adult is not the giver of knowledge. Children search out the knowledge through their own investigations.

Children are amazing communicators. We are all aware that communication is a process, a way of discovering things, asking questions, using language as play. Playing with sounds and rhythm and rhyme; delighting in the process of communicating.

Children are encouraged to use language to investigate and explore, to reflect on their experiences. They are listened to with respect, believing that their questions and observations are an opportunity to learn and search together. It is a process; a continual process. A collaborative process. Rather than the child asking a question and the adult offering the answers, the search is undertaken together.

For children at such an early age, the environment is the third teacher. 

The environment is recognized for its potential to inspire children. An environment filled with natural light, order and beauty. Open spaces free from clutter, where every material is considered for its purpose, every corner is ever-evolving to encourage children to delve deeper and deeper into their interests.

The space encourages collaboration, communication, and exploration. The space respects children as capable by providing them with authentic materials & tools. The space is cared for by the children and the adults.

The adult or parent is a mentor and guide. Our role as adults is to observe (our) children, listen to their questions and their stories, find what interests them and then provide them with opportunities to explore these interests further.

The Reggio Emilia Approach takes a child-led project approach. The projects aren’t planned in advanced, they emerge based on the child’s interests.

Probably the most well-known aspect of the Reggio Emilia Approach. The belief that children use many, many, different ways to show their understanding and express their thoughts and creativity.

A hundred different ways of thinking, of discovering, of learning. Through drawing and sculpting, through dance and movement, through painting and pretend play, through modelling and music, and that each one of these Hundred Languages must be valued and nurtured.

These languages, or ways of learning, are all a part of the child. Learning and play are not separated.

The Reggio Emilia Approach emphasizes hands-on discovery learning that allows the child to use all their senses and all their languages to learn.

Enjoy,

Ms. Nora Sierra

EC Assistant Principal

Discovery School

nsierra@discoveryschool.edu.hn

February 10, 2017

WHAT IS STEM ACTIVITIES FOR KIDS?

STEM is a pretty hot word these days, but do you know what it stands for or how important it really is? What is STEM? STEM is the future. STEM is science, technology, engineering, and math. These are all areas of learning that our kids need to be comfortable with to excel in the future. STEM makes creators, thinkers, problem solvers, doers, innovators, and inventors. Exposing kids to simple STEM ideas at an early age today sets a foundation for higher learning tomorrow.

WHAT IS STEM?

What is STEM? STEM is a real-world focus. STEM is hands-on learning that applies to the world around us. STEM is the future.  Exposing kids to simple STEM ideas at an early age today sets a foundation for higher learning tomorrow.

STEM builds and teaches creativity, problem solving, life skills, ingenuity, resourcefulness, patience, curiosity. STEM is what shapes the future as our world grows and changes. STEM is Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math. STEM is everywhere and in everything we do and how we live. From the natural world, around us to the tablets in our hands that show us the world far, far away. STEM builds inventors!

WHY CHOOSE STEM?

Our kids thrive with STEM activities. STEM activities push kids to expand their horizons, experiment, problem solve, and accept failure to success. Teachers need to choose STEM activities early on and present STEM activities in a playful way. You will not only teach your kids amazing concepts, but you will build a love for exploring, discovering, learning, and creating!

Enjoy,

Ms. Nora Sierra

EC Assistant Principal

Discovery School

February 1, 2017

Music Play

Creating Centers for

Musical Play and Exploration

The presence of music in young children’s lives can sometimes be taken for granted. In most early childhood classrooms, teachers and children sing a song or two at circle time. Many teachers use musical strategies to help children handle transitions for example, singing “We’re cleaning up our room, we’re cleaning up our room, we’re putting all the blocks away, we’re cleaning up our room” to the tune of “The Farmer in the Dell”. Parents often sing lullabies and traditional rhymes to their young children. At home and in the car, parents play recorded music

they themselves enjoy. They may play a “kid’s’” tape or CD to keep the children happy and occupied on the road. Music certainly is present in the lives of many young children. Nevertheless, there is a growing awareness that music is underused and under addressed in early childhood education. In the early years, musical aptitude is still developing. Infancy and early childhood are prime times to capitalize on children’s innate musical spontaneity, and to encourage their natural inclinations

to sing, move, and play with sound.

Creating Centers for Musical Play and Exploration

Music is in the air in Ms. Viola’s Head Start classroom. She has a large collection of CDs, most of which were recorded specifically for children. Music often plays in the background during greeting, snack, choice, and nap times.

Music is in use in Mr. Kerry’s pre-K classroom.

“Piggyback” songs remind children of expected

behaviors and add a pleasant dose of calm to

transitions that might otherwise become chaotic.

Music is on the lips of Mrs. Rosetti’s kindergartners. Morning circle begins with a greeting song, followed by children’s selection of two more songs from the class’s impressive repertoire. Afternoon circle is the time for learning and practicing new songs. Each of these teachers might say, “My classroom is very musical,” and each student is providing something of value.

Why does music not receive deeper attention in early childhood education? 

Teachers may not recognize the full value and potential of providing for children’s musical development and may not understand the many ways musical involvement can enhance development and learning in other areas. They may believe that musical development is important only for a small number of highly talented children. They may be intimidated by the specialized expertise of music educators or inhibited by their own lack of knowledge about music education or a perceived lack of musicianship. 

NAEYC and MENC (National Association of Music Education [formerly the Music Educators National Conference], www.menc.org) are collaborating to promote the full inclusion of music in early childhood curriculum.

Young children engage in music as play. Though many early childhood educators may not consider themselves musicians or music educators, they generally do feel comfortable with the medium of play. When offered a variety of drums and strikers, children play with sound.

By exploring and “messing around,” they discover they can make one sound by striking one drum and a different sound by striking another. Their drum play is supported because adults expect and allow for the “noise.”

When young children hear music, they move to it.

Supportive adults share their joy and delight in their fun, also, listening and moving in response to the music. Once children learn to sing, they create their own melodies and invent their own words to familiar songs. Their song play is supported when adults demonstrate authentic interest, interact with children through song, and engage in their own playful song making.

Play is central to early childhood education, and it is a primary vehicle for musical growth. When early childhood

teachers recognize the playful nature of children’s musical activity; music education may look more like familiar territory. Young children engage in music

as an exploratory activity, one that is interactive, social, creative, and joyful.

Enjoy,

Ms. Nora Sierra

Early Childhood Assistant Principal

Discovery School

January 23, 2017

Why Young Kids Learn Through Movement

Children acquire knowledge by acting and then reflecting on their experiences, but such opportunities are increasingly rare in school.

One of my children is spinning in a circle, creating a narrative about a princess as she twirls. The other is building a rocket ship out of a discarded box, attaching propellers made of cardboard and jumping in and out of her makeshift launcher. It is a rainy day, and I’ve decided to let them design their own activities as I clean up and prepare a meal. My toddler becomes the spinning princess, imagining her character’s feelings and reactions. What seems like a simple story involves sequencing, character development, and empathy for the brave princess stuck in her tower. The rocket ship my first grader is working on needs a pilot and someone to devise the dimensions and scale of its frame; it also needs a story to go with it. She switches between roles and perspectives, between modes of thinking and tinkering.

Movement allows children to connect concepts to action and to learn through trial and error. “If you walk into a good kindergarten class, everyone is moving. The teacher is moving. There are structured activities, but generally it is about purposeful movement,”comments Nancy Carlsson-Paige, a professor emerita of early-childhood education at Lesley University and the author of Taking Back Childhood, describing the ideal classroom setup. In the classroom culture, she advocates for, “[Kids] are getting materials for an activity, they are going back and deciding what else they need for what they want to create, seeing how the shape of a block in relation to another block works, whether they need more, does it balance, does it need to be higher, is it symmetrical. These math concepts are unfolding while kids are actively building and moving.”

Research has shown repeatedly that children need opportunities to move in class. Memory and movement are linked, and the body is a tool of learning, not a roadblock to or a detour away from it. Any parent who has brought home a kindergartener after school, bursting with untapped energy yet often carrying homework to complete after a seven-hour day, can reasonably deduce why children today have trouble keeping still in their seats. Many children are getting 20-minute breaks, or none. (In Florida, parents whose children have no recess have been campaigning to legislate recess into the curriculum.) Recess, now a more frequent topic of research studies, has been found to have “important educational and developmental implications.” Schools that have sought to integrate more movement and free play, such as short 15-minute recess periods throughout the day, have seen gains in student attention span and instructional time. As Carlsson-Paige points out, “Recess is not a separate thing in early-childhood education.”

Enjoy,

Ms. Nora Sierra

Early Childhood Assistant Principal

January 17, 2017

Can Movies Replace Books in Reading Class?

Can students' time in reading class be spent as profitably with a bowl of popcorn and a movie as with a novel and notebook?

In central New Jersey, a former school board member and parent are raising questions about the Hamilton Township School District's policy of allowing teachers to use movies for instructional purposes and teaching students reading skills through short excerpts instead of whole books or stories.

Research says that teachers might screen movies or portions of movies in order to stimulate discussion, but that the movies wouldn't be part of the teacher's approach to teaching reading skills.

 George Fisher, a former district school board member, argued in an email to the Trentonian that teachers should not use films to supplant, rather than to supplement, novels, and that asking students to read excerpts instead of whole texts is depriving them of important context. 

Fisher said this approach could lead to ignorance among students. From his email to the paper:

"Text is most certainly not simply a part of a text or a work. It is the book, the work, itself," he added. "A student assignment may well be to analyze a part of the book and compare it to/contrast it to, fit it into the whole of the book. It is not to analyze that 'part' in isolation. How can one do the required analysis of a part without knowing the whole?!"

Fisher writes that, while middle school standards for literacy ask students to be able to analyze live or filmed dramatizations of literary works, they wouldn't permit teachers to entirely replace reading a novel with watching its movie incarnation.

Enjoy,

Ms. Nora Sierra

EC Assistant Principal

Discovery School

December 2, 2016

What is Child Art?

CHILDREN love art because it’s fun and provides them with authentic self-expression, but how important is art to a child’s healthy development? Children’s art is many things to many people. To a parent, art is a display of a child’s imagination. To an educator, it’s a teaching tool. To a psychologist, art is a way to understand a child’s mind. To a grandparent, it’s a way to feel connected. To a librarian, it’s a way to enhance book knowledge. To a child, art is a way to have fun, make decisions, and express choices. Picasso wrote, “Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.” Is children’s art an act of genius? Are children more creative than adults? Perhaps, the spontaneity of children’s art is in their imagination. Child art simply impressed Picasso, like most child behavior, is direct and uncensored. A young child doesn’t analyze his work – he paints freely and with pleasure, enjoying the fine and gross motor experience of moving paint over paper and watching lines, shapes, and colors come to life. Art puts a child in the “driver’s seat” and provides freedom: the freedom of choice, thought, and feeling.

“Every child is an artist.

The problem is how

to remain an artist

once he grows up.”

—PABLO PICASSO

Art is a Language

Do you remember seeing a photograph that communicated a whole world of feeling? Perhaps it was a famous photograph or simply a family snapshot that captured the richness of a special moment. A picture is often worth a thousand words. Visual images communicate emotions and complexities in a way that words cannot. The ability to communicate non-verbally is particularly important for children. Art is a powerful tool that gives children the ability to express their thoughts and emotions long before they can fully express themselves with words. Once you acknowledge that art is a language, the importance of respecting a child’s artwork becomes obvious.

Enjoy,

Ms. Nora Sierra                                         

EC Assistant Principal

Discovery School

November 28, 2016