Art Experiences that Promote Preschool Learning
Art Experiences that Promote Preschool Learning
Source: Young Children and the Arts: Making Creative Connections, 1998, pp. 11–12
ART EDUCATION......
Source: Young Children and the Arts: Making Creative Connections, 1998, pp. 11–12
- Dance helps build motor control, body relationships, and a sense of direction.
- Drawing, sculpting, and other visual arts develop spatial acuity.
- Group activities, such as learning dance steps or singing songs, build social skills.
- As children describe people and things in their world using pictures, body movements, and mime, they enhance their descriptive, nonverbal, cognitive capabilities.
- Repeating stories, poems, and songs strengthens memory.
- The art supplies children choose for their work reflects their approach to process and outcomes.
ART EDUCATION......
- Plays a central role in cognitive, motor, language, and social-emotional development.
- Motivates and engages children in learning, stimulates memory, facilitates understanding, enhances symbolic communication, promotes relationships, and provides an avenue for building competence.
- Provides a natural source of learning. Child development specialists note that play is the business of young children; play is the way children promote and enhance their development. The arts are a most natural vehicle for play.