The Early Childhood and Lower Elementary Education program (ECE for short) has continued to give top quality workshops to Preschool and Lower Elementary teachers throughout this academic year. The program is coordinated by Elementary classroom instructor and PYP Instructional Leader Lina Mouchantaf in cooperation with the ERC. Saturday, March 28 saw 27 preschool and lower elementary teachers from over 20 public and private schools attending two fun workshops in this program – “Discovering Art” and “Percussion for Fun.” In her workshop “Discovering Art”, IC Art Department Head Mrs. Samia Boulad provided her participants with both art education goals and fun, hands-on activities to show how art can be used to challenge and develop students’ thinking skills as well as their creativity. Participants were given a task that required them to use mental operations and to manipulate a variety of media and tools. The results were an interesting set of ‘murals’. The fun activities presented in this workshop can be used easily in art classes.
In her workshop “Percussion for Fun”, preschool music instructor Dima Mneimneh showed teachers how to develop percussion patterns and make percussive music without using any instruments except their bodies. Participants later used the instruments to further explore the kinds of percussive music one can create. Again, both critical thinking skills and creativity were used in the end of workshop activity. What fun! Both workshop presenters enjoyed the day and working with the teachers. “I loved the experience; it was very rewarding to me professionally and personally” commented Dima. It was also obvious that participants enjoyed the day and learned a lot. “Learning through play and creativity is the most beneficial and interesting kind of learning,” commented one participant.
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