¶ … Teaching Childhood education has taken an eclectic approach when it comes to music whereby they have included a wide variety of musical experiences teaching. A major musical experience involves movement; whereby there are specific movement activities for different age groups of children. For a two-year-old good movement activities include use of different body movements and moving in a more coordinated way to music that is played. For four-year-olds they have mastered new movements and rapidly and easily switch from a particular type to another when a word is changed. When it comes to seven-year-olds they are capable of improvising movements and matching them to beats in a song. They are given more complex instructions of movements and easily follow them. All these movement activities are all developmentally correct for the specific ages the children are in. Good movements in a two-year-old help in the development of perceptual skills. This is because sensory perceptions of music are not normally limited to the auditory channel hence these movements help in developing other perceptual skills. Good movements in a four-year-old help in the development of cognitive skills in the child. These help in nurturing other forms of intelligence like logical mathematics or linguistics. For seven-year-olds the good movements help in developing social skills. This is because they encourage sharing, participation and cooperation. They are part of the bonding process that takes place early in life as well as part of enculturation of childhood.

During early infancy a child is not able to make out music however when they get to 6-9 months when the child is provided with rhythmical music they are able to move and even dance and at this time they start doing their little dance. At this stage they can be provided with instruments for them to explore. They now start clapping to beats of a song and even singing rhyming songs. At this early developmental level they begin making connections through rhyme and repetition. At the toddler stage they now begin distinguishing among sounds and start imitating sounds they hear at appropriate peaches. The toddlers begin exploring sound with the use of household objects and begin singing and humming to music. During the preschool period children have better control of their voice, rhythmic response and even easily master a song. They can now even recognize their favorite tunes and songs and sing portions of these songs. This change during the primary grades since here a child is now able to recognize what type of music they like and the ones they do not like. The musical preferences get well established and music ceases being the simple thing they thought it was in their toddler and preschool years. Music now has a much greater meaning in the lives of these children; it ceases to be the noise they used to know as infants, something they explored as toddlers and something they have to learn in preschool.

Songs which can be personalized to sing with young children would be such as those that teach basic life teachings like obedience, love, compassion, respect and so on. These themes can be clearly laid out in the songs so that as the children sing they are constantly reminded of these themes.

UNIT 7 SEMINAR

Creative drama is regarded as a highly effective and valuable teaching strategy that can be used in children. Creative drama matches the developmental level and learning styles of young children due to its ability of engaging reflective, constructive as well as active learning within a classroom. Creative drama matches the developmental level in young children as it enhances the development of oral skills.it also helps in development of cognitive skills as it enables the students take risks with language hence experience the link between a thought and an action. Creative drama also has a very unique way of engaging many different learning styles and hence enabling connections with students at the same time motivating learners (Ashton-Hay, 2005).

Socio-dramatic play refers to play which entails...

On the other hand creative dramatics is a non0exhibitional, improvisional and process oriented drama where those who are participating are guided by a leader to imagine, reflect and enact on experiences that are real and imagined. The main difference between these two is that for docudramatic plays are based on contents of books and cartoons while creative drama is based on an individual's imagination and experiences (Ashton-Hay, 2005). Similarity in both is that participants are given a sense of control over their environment and develop their own imaginative worlds. Socio-dramatic play and creative dramatics can be integrated into an early childhood program through including lessons that will be totally on these two learning styles. The lessons have to be made frequent so that these learning styles can be effective.
UNIT 8 SEMINAR

The Reggio Emilia and High scope approaches are both early childhood approaches which are used in preschool, kindergarten, childcare or even elementary school settings. A similarity between these two educational approaches are based on constructivism in that in both there is the belief that we learn through physically and mentally interacting with the environment as well as other people. The difference between these two approaches is that for high scope puts emphasis on individualized attention and it is good for children that have developmental delays while Regio Emilia is based on fundamental values on how children learn and emphasizes on creation of an environment where children can explore and do learning activities that are self-directed. Creative thinking and arts are easily incorporated in these two approaches in their curriculums for the High / scope this is in the key experiences part of the curriculum that included creative presentations music, initiative and social relation and so on. For the Reggio Emilia this is achieved in the curriculums through emphasis of theory and practice, use of the environment as a third teacher, and co-construction (Klein, 2008).

I consider the high scope approach to be the most effective, according to research after the program the educational as well as life outcomes for children that have gone through it has been found to be more superior compared to the outcomes for children that have not gone through it. This is mainly attributed to the unique components of its framework which include key experiences that include classification, creative presentation, music and so on;, plan-do-review which involves children are meant to plan an area, materials and methods to be used, carry out the plan and review; and the high scope child observation record whereby these classrooms have a consistent routine. A project approach is meant to follow interest of children since they are the main focus of any of these educational approaches. The children are center pieces in these approaches and therefore the project approach should follow the interest of the children in order for it to be effective. The project approach is the most meaningful curricular approach for them since it is results based and hence educators are sure of being effective when they use this approach. Arts have to be part of the project since they are effective in any learning process. Including arts in the projects can be achieved through emphasis of its importance and hence it becomes inevitable to leave it out.

UNIT 9 SEMINAR

Creative processes and products can be assessed through using assignments that encourage students to excise creative thinking on a topic or subject previously learnt .this is an effective assessment method because a teacher is able to gauge the creativity of a student based on how they express themselves on the particular area which requires creativity. This will help then measure the process of creativity and the product of the student's creativity simultaneously (Munro, 2010).

Loris Malaguuzi became the inspiration behind educational experiences in Reggio Emilia. Loris held…