Description- in the beginning of a new unit Art is all Around us we prepared pictures from various arts- drama, music, visual arts and etc. We asked the kids to sort things in to 3 groups.
Aim- to look for various opportunities in arts (how to express our self's in art). To improve English vocabulary.
Thinking aim- to look for similarities and differences in art and explain why.
Results- kids already had experience in sorting activities. Any way it was very difficult for them in the beginning to find something common. But after they found a clue- some pictures had people, some flowers.The kids began to play with opportunities. So the teachers told- we need to look for something conected with art. After a while kids made a gruop of music, art and drama. Some of the pictures- like pictures from the opera and balate were dissuced a lot.The kids find out that somethings can be in all 3 groups. It was not easy to explain the choice- why ballet comes in a group with music and not drama.
Comments
1. It's difficult to judge without seeing the pictures (is it possible to add them under Materials?), but it seems that the aim for sorting would be rather connected with drawing children's attention to various features of different forms of art. I am not sure how they will learn about different forms of self-expression. Nor am I sure btw that self-expression is sth pre-school kids are very keen on.
2. I think that a thinking aim can be defined better than 'looking for similarities and differences'. If you teach children to apply elements of the ENV model, they can learn to understand which parameters are more likely to be used for grouping particular elements and which ones are less likely. These opens much more doors than just similarities and differences.
3. I'd be really interested in having more information on at least two aspects: a) the actual grouping proposed by the kids and b) how the teacher responded to the kids' suggestions. From there, we could discuss these in the context of the Thinking Task Framework.