Animal Books – Should Your Children Read Them?
Do you remember when you were younger looking with admiration at all sort of animals? There is something fascinating about animals. Everybody loves them (well, most of us), but children seem to be particularly enamoured with fuzzy, little faces. Maybe they love them so much because a lot of them are as small as they are, and perhaps because animals are so fascinatingly different. I can not tell why, but I do know that the attraction is true.
Books featuring animals and stories about them are always the children’s favourite books. Animal books were all she wanted to read for a long time, and they are still her favourite.
The first animal books that she looked at were simple picture books. All she wanted was to look at images of various animals and see what they can do or where they live. Though her most favorite animal books were the ones about animals that she could see every day, I have found that she is now more interested in the ones that we don’t see.
She wants to go to Australia and hold a koala bear. Sometimes, she pretends she is a baby koala, and when you ask her what her favorite animal is she might say a baby kangaroo, which she calls a Joey.
She started enjoying animal books that come with a story as she got older. Perhaps it is easier for her to use her imagination with animals as opposed to human beings. I’m not really sure.
This could be the reason why stories like Donald Duck are so popular from one generation to the other. The way to learn about human interaction because they show animals in a very human way.
How teachers can use art and music education to help children heal from trauma and crisis
Music and arts education are valuable components of academic instruction. And they become even more valuable when they are used towards the resolution of crisis situations that affect and traumatized children around the globe. Creative expression has both educational and psychological significance for children that have suffered natural disasters, wars, and violent acts, serving as a way through which people of diverse cultures can interact and unite in their shared humanity.
Teachers use art and music to cultivate communication, social abilities and cognitive emotions to increase cooperation, self-confidence and self-esteem. Through the creation of singing, moving, and listening stimulus to music, a broad range of emotional, cognitive and physical abilities of children are brought out and help them to learn new skills.
Creative therapy can be expressed in a variety of forms including music and movement therapy, writing techniques and play therapies. Aiming to provide children with a means of expression that can help them express their emotions about their individual experiences while using their imagination and the creativity of the therapist, creative therapy offers a sense of accomplishment.
Music and movement therapies have a therapeutic effect on children. By addressing physical, psychological, cognitive and/or social functioning, music and movement act as a powerful medium that provides support and encouragement to each traumatized child in the effort to acquire new skills and abilities. Movement therapies transform feelings into movement that helps children release their stress and express their emotions. On the other hand, music, because of its ability to touch each person in a different way and often in many different ways, creates the grounds for new learning opportunities and most importantly, for leading a normal life.
Does Music Help Children?
Why is Music Important for Kids?
This question has been debated for as long as time has existed. Even the great Greek and Roman philosophers approached the question: is music something that should be taught and does it help the development of children? Plato answered “I would teach children music, physics, and philosophy; but most importantly music, for in the patterns of music and all arts are the keys to learning.” And again “what then is the education to be? Perhaps we could hardly find a better than that which the experience of the past has already discovered, which consists, I believe, in gymnastic, for the body, and music for the mind.”
In all cultures of the world music plays an important role. While these roles may change depending on the culture it is impossible to separate music from the life of an individual. While some may argue the role of music in our lives it is impossible to escape it. Even in the popular culture of Australia it is impossible to go shopping without hearing music. Music provides a means of communication and expression of culture and individual identity.
Children are immersed in music from birth and will be for their entire life. If this is the case why teach it? Is not the constant immersion in music enough? To this I say; is the fact that we witness the results of scientific principals on a day to day basis result in the understanding of those scientific principles? No it does not and likewise for music it does not either. The day to day encounters we have with music can move us but the understanding of this music can help us grow as individuals.
