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It is important that children have the chance to explore the arts from a young age. The arts not only provide enjoyment and pleasure, but they develop the mind and help the pupils to think. The arts also help the children develop personal qualities,  provide insight into human situations and also the arts improve performance in other subject areas ( Fleming,2012).

From an early age children enjoy making marks. This is closely linked with a number of stage theories by the work of Lowenfield and Brittain (1987). The 4 stages are closely linked with children’s age for example the pre-schematic stage is where children from ages 4-7 are seen to perform. However, as the times have moved, as educators we tend not to slot children into these stages as we appreciate that children come from different backgrounds, cultures and often progress at different times as one another.

When children fist begin to put pen to paper, they are seen to make marks. Children find it easy to communicate through mark making and can often tell a story through the random marks that they have made on a page. Some children even find it easier to draw to express their feelings rather than using the spoken word.

As children move through each stage, they often become obsessed with their work being perfect. When children reach the second level ( the gang stage) they often want their work to stand out, and be as artistic as possible.

It is important that we also make cross curricular links with the expressive arts. As numeracy and literacy often take priorities in the classroom, it is important that we can incorporate the arts into these areas of the curriculum. This may help children understand areas that are more difficult for them, and they may also find enjoyment in an area of difficulty. As educators we can set different tasks for example giving children a story and then asking the children to draw pictures over the words which might engage the children. We want children to express their literacy and numeracy through art.

 

 

 

An ‘Urban Environment’ can be described as a districted which surrounds a city. The population living in urban do not have rural jobs. Urban areas are often very humanly structured due to the variety of houses, railways, buildings and roads. The town where I live would come under the Urban Environment as it has all the things listed in the what an urban area contains.

In Inverclyde, Greenock the buildings vary between old and modern builds. Some of the oldest buildings are used by many people, such as the local town hall, also known as the Municipal Buildings is used by Inverclyde Council and the local library. Another old building is the Mclean Museum and art gallery which has been around since the 1876 and is still open today. There are many old builds of church as well which are still located within Inverclyde, Greenock. Most school’s would come under as a new build as many within Inverclyde, Greenock have been refurbished and/or knocked down in the past years.

There is a variety of transport used in Inverclyde, Greenock such as, cars, trains and buses. All of these modes of transport are used on a daily bases but also allow people to get to the different places they needed to be such as work, school, university/college and many other places. However, cars are  probably the most common and used means of transport for many people because it tends to be quicker than the other types of transport. There is a variety of issues caused by all types of transport such as, traffic congestion, parking difficulties, longer commuting times, maintenance costs, loss of public space and many more.

Within Inverclyde Greenock there is around seven local Primary Schools and three High Schools all of which are sitting nearly at full capacity. There is not a community centre in the area as it is still in the process of being built. There is a local library, that is opened to everyone as a study space. Primary Schools take classes to the library for pupils to know the services available to them. The library offers classes such as ‘Book Bug’ and ‘Rhyme Time’  these is babies and toddlers showing services are open to all.

Inverclyde’s  population ranges from early years to adulthood. For young people there is space for football, tennis and badminton this is also open for the use of adults as well as gym. This allows people somewhere to go as a means of keeping people off the streets reducing temptation of trouble. Within Greenock we are fortunate enough to have a theatre, many different drama and dance schools use this facility. Those who take part in both drama and dance schools ages vary meaning it offers something for every person.

In Inverclyde, Greenock could be described as a roadside type environment, thus resulting in the air quality being vary low. Using ‘Air Quality Scotland’ helped to see air quality being low and this is due to the amount of pollution caused by the amount of cars that are on the road.

A lesson that could be done with a Primary 5 Class splitting the class into two different groups, one half of the class  research rural environments and the other half research urban environments trying to get as much detail as possible. In each of the groups create a presentation on what has been learned about both environments then present to the rest of the class. In doing this pupils will be working together and deciding what is essential to their presentation.

 

 

Todays lecture and visual arts workshop linked as it was about Making Marks Make Sense as this is the first instance of a child’s progression to write. ‘Scribbles are products of a systematic investigation rather than haphazard actions’- John Matthews (pg19) (1999) .

McAuliffe, 2007 is about children’s development in art and design. In this document it shares the multiple stage theories accountable for children’s cognitive development in education. Staged theory in education is liked to the works or Lowenfield and Brittain (1987). The stages of development are to identify the scribbling age (2-4 years), pre- schematic stage (4-7 years), schematic stage (7-9 years) and lastly the gang stage (9-12 years).

 

Scribble, colour and different textures are a variety if resources children can use in order to express themselves through the visual arts.

 

In this mornings lesson each individual took a page out of a reading and had to scribble down ideas on how we interpreted the piece of text given to us. I saw this as a good lesson idea as well as teaching point. This type of lesson could be done with a book relating to a certain topic or just any book a child is interested in. The aim of this would be to allow children to express themselves as well as interpret what they are reading through drawing images, which relate to the text.

 

Matthew. J (1999), The Art of Childhood and Adolescence. The Construction of Meaning. London: Falmer (pg19)

 

McAuliffe D (2007) Foundation and Primary Settings. In Teaching Arts and Design 3-11 (edited by Sue Cox, Robert Watts, Judy Grahame, Steve Herne and Diarmuid McAuliffe) London: Continum.