The Creative Arts

For courses in Creative Arts in Early Childhood Education.

This text emphasizes process over product in guiding preservice teachers to guide preschoolers and primary-grade chidren in creatively expressing themselves in the arts: visual arts, dance and movement, and drama. Key changes to this edition include a new feature on extending creativity into the home with families, more multicultural content and examples of multicultural art forms, and a new section in each chapter addressing national standards.

New to this Edition!

Many changes and major revisions in this fifth edition provide a comprehensive look at the creative arts and how the arts can expand our understanding of the teaching and learning process.

Inclusion of Mathematics, Science, Social studies and the Language Arts Standards.

Each of the content chapters presents the national standards for mathematics, science, social studies and language arts and describes how these standards can be integrated into visual and performing arts lessons. This feature will help students and instructors answer the question: "How do I include the creative arts within a standards driven curriculum?" This new feature will enable students and instructors to address all of the national content areas standards in ways that are appropriate for young children.

Curriculum Planning, Lesson Plans and Arts Integreation.

The chapters on music, dance and movement, visual arts and theatre (drama) presents strategies for developing lesson plans to encourage using the arts as an all encompassing arena for including mathematics, science, social studies and the language arts within a creative arts curriculum.

Assessment.

Assessment procedures are presented and described to provide students and instructors with concrete ideas that will provide children opportunities to demonstrate their capabilities in a fair and accurate manner in an authentic setting that is integrated into the instructional process.

Theory Into Practice: Implications for Teaching.

These sections take a critical look at theory and presents ideas for linking theory to practice. Suggestions are provided for developing activities based on the developmental level of the children. This feature demystifies what can be abstract theoretical ideas and describes theory in terms of children's active learning modalities.

Where Does a Teacher Get Ideas for Creative Arts?

This feature presents ideas gleaned from practicing teachers about how they use children's interests in deciding on ideas for process oriented art lessons. Successful lessons from teachers are included throughout the chapters on music, dance and movement, visual arts and theatre.