MICHELE POST

Early Childhood educators have the responsibility of sharing their knowledge with their students in a way that is beneficial to the children’s development. While not every teacher is going to be an expert at every subject, it is important that they strive to increase their knowledge in order to create meaningful curriculum for their students.

A content area that I am passionate about is creative arts. While the arts do not take precedent in many schools, I firmly believe that they have worth and can benefit other content areas. One way children learn is through hands on exploration. Having students work together to put on a play can be a method of having children touch multiple disciplines and various intelligences they possess. The narrative of the play can cover a concept from another content area such as the plot of a book for literacy, how plants grow for science, a reenactment of an event for history, the options are numerous. Children can exercise their artistic abilities through set and costume design, work on their spatial ability through staging, kinesthetics can be addressed through dance, linguistics through line recitation, interpersonal skills through interacting with each other, etc.

In order to access whether my creative arts plan was working I would address the following:

-Is the task I am asking my students to preform developmentally appropriate for their age group?

-Does the assignment apply to multiple areas of intelligences (logic, linguistic, spatial, musical, kinesthetic, intrapersonal, interpersonal, and naturalistic)?

– Are several interdisciplinary skills addressed (literacy, mathematics, science, music, arts, etc.)?

-Am I knowledgeable enough on the subject to instruct my students?

– Can I adequately address the questions my students may have?

Answer this question and it should be similiar to those student respond

Application of Guidelines

Using the information from the NAEYC Standards document, specifically Standard 5: Understanding Content Knowledge in Early Education, choose one content area and explain how you would apply these guidelines to a K-3 classroom. Create an in-class assessment that would use these guidelines while also addressing the individual learning styles and intelligence of young children.