The Art of Making Children


Book Description

This book explores the issues that surround medically assisted reproduction. It addresses the place of destiny, including how to think about individual destinies in an age of increasingly accessible gene sequencing paired with a growing link between procreation and prediction.




Children, Meaning-Making and the Arts


Book Description

This Australian text is about children’s voices – their minds, feelings, souls. It’s about how children’s voices are liberated through the arts, and how children make and communicate meaning through still and moving images, sounds, textures, gestures and the use of many other signs. It is also about how teachers, parents, peers and the community influence children’s early development, and how quality arts education in early childhood is an essential component of lifelong learning. The authors are teachers and researchers who are respected for their contributions to early childhood arts education. All of them have addressed their topics via practical examples, which are embedded in current philosophies and theories, often stemming from original research and firsthand interactions with children.




Making Inclusion Work for Children with Dyspraxia


Book Description

Drawing on their considerable experiences of the syndrome, as well as current research findings, the authors help teachers and other education professionals to better understand the needs of a dyspraxic child. Through practical strategies, they show how teachers can make all the difference to a child's ability to succeed in the classroom, and case studies show how parents, teachers and therapists can work together to facilitate learning. Whilst providing a unique insight and approach to the complex condition of dyspraxia, this lively, informative text also examines specific cases and scenarios, considering the perspectives of teachers and parents. It handles a range of crucial topics such as: * issues surrounding diagnosis * the developmental differences and characteristics of dyspraxia * conventional and alternative intervention strategies * an exploration of the pressure of families * ways of improving home/school liaison. Teachers, SENCOs and other educational professionals will find this book provides a wealth of essential information and guidance, whilst parents will also find much to support them in the daily care and welfare of their child.




Making Sense Of Children'S Drawings


Book Description

"Making Sense of Children's Drawings is enlivened with the real drawings of seven young children collected over three years. These drawings stimulated dialogues with the children, parents and practitioners whose voices are reported in the book. The book makes an argument for us to rethink radically the role of drawing in young children's construction of meaning, communication and sense of identity. It provides insights into the influence of media and consumerism, as reflected in popular visual imagery, and on gender identity formation in young children. It also offers strong messages about the overemphasis on the three Rs in early childhood education.".




Making Sense of Children's Drawings


Book Description

The message of this book is a simple one: children learn to draw by acquiring increasingly complex and effective drawing rules. In this regard, learning to draw is like learning a language, and as with language children use these rules creatively, making infinite use of finite means. Learning to draw is thus, like learning a language, one of the major achievements of the human mind. Theories of perception developed in the second half of the 20th century enable us to construct a new theory of children's drawings that can account for their many strange features. Earlier accounts contained valuable insights, but recent advances in the fields of language, vision, philosophy, and artificial intelligence now make it possible to resolve the many contradictions and confusions inherent in these early writings. John Willats has written a book that is accessible to psychologists, artists, primary and junior schoolteachers, and parents of both gifted and normal children.




Delivering Authentic Arts Education 4e


Book Description

This market-leading practical text helps student teachers develop their confidence, understanding and skills to effectively and authentically teach arts. With a strong balance between theory and practice, Delivering Authentic Arts Education outlines the true nature of the key learning area of arts education and its importance in the curriculum, emphasising the arts as forms of creative activity, meaning-making and expression in a cultural context. Initial chapters discuss how to recognise and build on existing artistic abilities and pedagogical skills, how to encourage children’s creativity, how to lead arts appreciation experiences, and the general principles of planning and assessment. Part 2 specifically examines the five arts areas: dance, drama, media arts, music and visual arts. The final part of the text, Units of Inquiry, contains valuable sample learning activities and resources that demonstrate how to plan an effective lesson within a unit of inquiry.




Children Making Meaning


Book Description

This ground-breaking text highlights the value of drawing as a meaningful way for children to communicate, demonstrating how it is inextricably linked with children’s everyday experiences, thinking processes, imagination, emotions, and learning. By exploring what intrigues and concerns children, Children Making Meaning: Exploring Drawings, Narratives, and Identities demonstrates how drawing is so much more than an insignificant pastime. Illustrated throughout, this book includes examples of children’s drawings to explore and explain the processes, relationships, and modes they use, as well as the themes and meanings that emerge from them. Practical case study material illuminates the complexity of children’s thinking, intentions, and knowledge as they find creative and individual ways to convey their thoughts, fears, excitements, contentments, and fascinations. This book also explores the relationship between drawing and talk and how children’s ongoing drawing-narratives help them to develop and change their meanings as they draw. Accessibly combining relevant theories with numerous original examples, this essential resource is a must-read for educators and other professionals who use children’s drawings in their work. It will also be useful for parents who wish to support their children’s drawing activities and extend such opportunities at home.




Children's Creative Music-Making with Reflexive Interactive Technology


Book Description

Children's Creative Music-Making with Reflexive Interactive Technology discusses pioneering experiments conducted with young children using a new generation of music software for improvising and composing. Using artificial intelligence techniques, this software captures the children’s musical style and interactively reflects it in its responses. The book describes the potential of these applications to enhance children’s agency and musical identity by reflecting players’ musical inputs, storing and creating variations on them. Set in the broader context of current music education research, it addresses the benefits and challenges of incorporating music technologies in primary and pre-school education. It is comprised of six main chapters, which cover the creation of children's own music and their musical selves, critical thinking skills and learner agency, musical language development, and emotional intent during creative music-making. The authors provide a range of straight-forward techniques and strategies, which challenge conceptions of ‘difficult-to-use music technologies’ in formal music education. These are supported by an informative collection of practitioner vignettes written by teachers who have used the software in their classrooms. Not only are the teachers’ voices heard here, but also those of children as they discover some of the creative possibilities of music making. The book also provides free access to a companion website with teacher forums and a large bank of activities to explore. A toolkit serves as a database of the teaching activities in which MIROR applications have been used and provides a set of useful ideas regarding its future use in a variety of settings. This book demonstrates that music applications based on artificial intelligence techniques can make an important contribution to music education within primary and pre-school education. It will be of key interest to academics, researchers and postgraduate students in the fields of music education, music technology, early years and primary education, teaching and learning, and teacher educators. It will also serve as an important point of reference for Early Years and Primary practitioners.




Breaking the Silence


Book Description

Children of violence need to be heard. Unable or unwilling to verbalize their suffering, abused children are often immobilized by fear, rage, guilt, and pain. In the second edition of Breaking the Silence: Art Therapy with Children from Violent Homes , Cathy Malchiodi demonstrates the unique power of art therapy as a tool for intervening with children from violent backgrounds. In this new edition, she describes the intervention process from intake to termination, noting the complex issues involved at various levels of evaluation and interpretation. Bringing her years of experience in working at battered women's shelters to bear on the subject, Ms. Malchiodi brings the language of art therapy to life--a language of art that gives children a voice and those who work with them, a way of listening. The emphasis here is on the short-term setting where time is at a premium and circumstances are unpredictable. It is within this setting that mental health practitioners often experience frustration and a sense of helplessness in their work with the youngest victims of abusive families. Since the first edition of this book was published, research has led to some new ideas related to sexual abuse. The author analyzes several issues concerning the treatment of sexually abused children and art expressions of sexually abused children. In addition, Ms. Malchiodi launches a discussion about the ethical issues in the use of children's art as a whole. Featured throughout the book are 95 drawings by abused children. These drawings are at once poignant and hopeful, clearly representing the extraordinary suffering that abused children experience at, at the same time, showing that they can be reached. Because the practice of art therapy methods has been integrated into many disciplines, the final chapter covers development of art therapy programs for children. The author shares information on art supplied, space, and storage ideas. For art therapists, social workers, and other practitioners who work with children in crisis, this book presents a practical methodology for intervention that fosters the compassion and insight necessary to reveal what words cannot.




Making Toys for Preschool Children


Book Description

This series is a teacher's dream--create unique toys and props using everyday, inexpensive materials.