FACULTY OF EDUCATION AND LANGUAGES

SEMESTER JANUARY 2017

HBEC 3403

CREATIVITY IN EARLY CHILDHOOD

MATRICULATION NO : 901124145358001

IDENTITY CARD NO. : 901124-14-5358

TELEPHONE NO. : 017-6886861

E-MAIL : hunyong90.chia@gmail.com

LEARNING CENTRE : Johor Learning Centre

Table of contents

Pages

1.0 Introduction.. 2
2.0 Contents of Creative Centre. 3

2.1 Learning Materials, Design and Organization of Learning Centre.. 3

3.0 Benefits of Creative Centre.. 5

3.1 Benefits of Art Centre.. 5

3.2 Benefits of Dramatic Centre 6

3.3 Benefits of Music Centre. 7

4.0 Activities in Creative Centre... 8

4.1 Supermarket Lesson at Dramatic Centre. 8

5.0 Observation of the childrens level of engagement and creativity

during the activity 9

6.0 Conclusion... 12

References... 13

1.0 Introduction

According to Michael (n.d.), hands-on experience is crucial for young children where they
can learn best and enhance childrens creativity during their early years, which is the main
reasons that learning centres is a vital part in preschool classroom. Other than that, according
to Morrison (2014), active learning is an essential part of constructivism. Active learning
means that children construct knowledge through physical and mental activity and that they
are actively involved in problem-setting and problem solving activities. Hence, teacher
should be consider various factors to set up the best learning centres for their children. For

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examples, the learning materials in the learning centres, design of the learning centres as well
the organization of the learning centres.

In this assignment, the learning materials in the learning centres, design of the learning
centres as well the organization of the learning centres will be further discuss in this
assignment. The assignment observation has been carried in one of the preschool in
Singapore which is Carpediem @ Hilltop Pte Ltd. There are various creative learning centres
in this preschool which include music learning centre which is known as Beethoven, dramatic
learning centre and art learning centre which is known as Picasso.

The benefits of all the creative centres for the child development will also be discussed in the
assignment. Dramatic learning centre is a great place for children explore on their social and
interactions skills. Music learning centre allow children to learn about sounds, pattern,
rhythm and also emerging on childrens physical skills. While art centre can may help to
improve child visual awareness on different colour, shapes and line. Children improve their
fine motor skills and gross motor skills while handling with different types of materials in art
centre which will be discussed further in this assignment.

Furthermore, teacher need to develop an appropriate activity for children when bringing
children to all the learning centres. As children learn about the theme of my world - my
community, the activity will be discussed in this assignment would be on the place around
their community which is supermarket. The learning centre selected will be dramatic centre
where there is trolley, cash register machine and different types of vegetables and fruit for
children pretending that they are in the supermarket. The observation on childrens level of
engagement and creativity will also be included in this assignment. Last but not least, as an
evidence of level of engagement and creativity of children, photos while children carry out
their activity will also be included in this assignment.

2.0 Contents of Creative Centre

The learning materials in the learning centres, design of the learning centres as well the
organization of the learning centres will be further discuss in this section. These three aspects
is crucial aspects that teachers need to look into it. The learning materials have to be age
appropriate, non-harmful to children and must be child-friendly. While the design of the
learning centres should be attractive and the organization of the learning centre need to be
well organized to maximize the childs learning.

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2.1 Learning Materials, Design and Organization of Learning Centre

There are numerous learning materials used in the learning centres in Carpe Diem preschool.
For music centre, they named it as Beethoven centre. They included a CD player, a keyboard
piano and also other different types of musical instruments in the music centre. The musical
instruments include egg shaker, xylophone, triangle, castanets and many more. For the design
of the music centre, the music centre are surround with mirror on the wall so that children
may increase their hand-eye coordination as they can mirror themselves during activities.
They provide an ample space in music room so that children would have enough space while
carrying out activities in music room. All the electrical socket are install in a child-height
position so that children will not reach the electrical socket for safety purposes.

All the learning materials are organize properly which different musical instruments are place
in different container and label with pictures and also the name of musical instrument. The
picture label is main for younger children so that they can recognize which musical
instrument to put in which container and they will return the musical instruments in the
original place. While for the name of musical instruments, teachers can let older children
learn on the names of musical instruments. All the musical instruments are place in the shelf
neatly. There are child-size sink with soap and tissue available for children near the dramatic
centre to wash their hand frequently to prevent from transmittable germs through the musical
instruments in music centre among young children.

While in art centre which is known as Picasso centre includes different types of art and craft
material which allowed children to explore with different types of materials in the art centre.
The learning materials include different colour such as washable paint, crayons and colour
pencil. There are also children scissors, art glue available in the art centre. There are also
different types of paper materials such as drawing block, origami paper, construction paper,
different sizes paper plates and many more. There is sufficient of paint brushes and
watercolour palettes provided in the art centre. The craft materials in art centre include
googly eyes, craft punch, pipe cleaners, pompoms ball, recycled egg carton, ice cream sticks,
sponge, glitters and yarn.

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All the art and craft materials are organize properly which all the materials are place in
container and label with pictures and also the name of the materials. The purpose of labelling
same as the purpose in the music centre. There are chairs and tables provided for children so
that children have an appropriate play for their art and craft activities or lesson. All the art and
craft materials are place in the shelf neatly. Other than that, they do include art and craft
apron kid long sleeve bib smock painting for younger children to prevent their school
uniform from stain during art and craft activities. There are child-size sink with soap and
tissue available for children near the art centre to wash their hand frequently to prevent from
transmittable germs among young children.

Besides, they are two dramatic learning centres in Carpe Diem @ Hilltop preschool which are
pet shop and farm cum supermarket. In pet shop, there are different soft toys of pets such as
puppy, kitten and turtle. Children can also match the different types of food for different pet
in the dramatic corner. All the toys in pet shop dramatic corner are place in a proper shoe
bags to act as the pet carrier and all the included proper labelling. All the materials are placed
in a proper shelf which is reachable by children. There are also child-size sink with soap and
tissue available for children near the art centre to wash their hand frequently to prevent from
transmittable germs among young children.

In supermarket dramatic centre they are different types of vegetables, fruits, farm goods
included in the dramatic centre. They are also cash register machine, money notes and coins,
shopping cart are included in supermarket dramatic centre. They do provide ample space as
well for both dramatic centre, all the materials are organize properly and labelled with
pictures and names of the items in the dramatic centre. All the dramatic materials are placed
in a proper shelf where is reachable by all the children. There are child-size sink with soap
and tissue available for children near the dramatic centre to wash their hand frequently to
prevent from transmittable germs through the toys in dramatic centre among young children.

3.0 Benefits of Creative Centre

There are numbers of benefits while children carrying their activities in different learning
centres. The benefits of different learning centres will be discussed in this chapter.

3.1 Benefits of Art Centre

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Cuffaro (2011) defined fine motor skills as students proficiency in using small motor
muscles for tasks such as writing, buttoning or grasping. In art and craft activities children
can improve their fine motor skills through activities such tearing papers, painting using paint
brushes as well as cutting papers using scissors.

Other than that, through art and craft activities in art centre children are able to express their
creativity skills. They are able to express their own idea, trying out new things and also
exploring themselves changing different types of materials. Teacher should allow children to
develop their own creativity by providing children with variety of materials and give them
more them to express their own creativity.

While sharing materials with their peers, children also manage to improve their problem
solving skills and social interaction skills. Children would use words such as please, thank
you while they share their art and craft materials with their peers. In addition, children might
improve their problem solving skills. For example, if the art centre do not have purple colour
children can solve this problem by using blue and red colour to form purple colour.

In addition, art and craft activities in the art centre would also help children to build their
cognitive development. Art allows children to learn about themselves and the world around
them (Upitis, 2011). Cognitive development deals with the maturing of the ability to think
and understand (Rohani, 2015). As carrying out activities in the art centre, children manage to
learn about the world such as different colours, different sizes and also different shapes.
Children are also able to understand the concept of mixing primary colour to form secondary
colour. They also experimenting using different types of material and allowed them to
understand on different context such as paper are with smooth surface and bubble wraps are
with rough surface.

Furthermore, teacher may carry out show and tell activity after the complete their art and
craft activities by asking open-ended questions. Through show and tell children may improve
vocabulary skills, teacher may encourage children to use different terms such as if children
telling lines that they make they may use terms such as straight lines, curves lines, wavy lines
and many more.

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3.2 Benefits of Dramatic Centre

Marie (n.d.) dramatic play can be defined as a type of play where children accept and assign
roles, and then act them out. Experts agree that dramatic play is an integral part of a well-
rounded preschool program as it is healthy for early childhood development (Sarah, 2017).
Children can improve in different development including social and emotional, physical,
cognitive as well as language development.

For social and emotional development, children who join activities in dramatic play tends to
show their empathy as during dramatic play they act as other person. Research by Hirsh-
Pasek, Golinkoff, Berk and Singer (2009) mentioned that dramatic provides the foundation
for forms of self-regulation such as reduced aggression, delay of gratification, civility and
empathy. As they are acting as the other person, they are able to put themselves in others
shoes which means they are able to show their empathy towards others. As they need to
cooperate with their peers, children also develop their social skills where they learn to
communicate to each other. Besides, children are able to control their emotional when they
learn to control their impulses and tend to be less aggressive than children who do not involve
themselves in dramatic play.

For physical development, fine and gross motor can also be developed through dramatic play.
For example, while playing with dolls in the dramatic centre children learn to button and
unbutton the dress of the doll. Button and unbutton can help to develop childrens fine motor
skills. Another example which children pretend as a police which they run to catch the thief,
running may help children to develop their gross motor skills.

While for cognitive development, children involved in make-believe play where they have
their past experiences picture on their mind and they make use of all these pictures in their
mind to recreate the scenario during dramatic play. Hence, it is a form of abstract thinking
which can be improved their cognitive thinking.

Their language development can also be benefit from dramatic play in dramatic centre.
Children try to use language to describe what they are doing during dramatic play. As they
ask and answer to questions from their peers or teachers during dramatic play, it can help
them to promote a good language development.

3.3 Benefits of Music Centre

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Music learning centre is also another learning centre that helps children in different
developmental area. Firstly, music enable children to learn different sounds, rhythm of the
music as well as different phases in the song such as fast and slow. One of the nursery rhymes
with fast and slow phase are head, shoulders, knees and toes.

While children singing songs they also develop their language where they learn to pronounce
the words in the lyrics and also putting the sentences together. Music can improve a childs
linguistic skills including fluency, pronunciation enunciation and vocabulary (Aquino, 1991).
By learning through the song lyrics children are also easily to remember information. For
example, toddlers learn their alphabet sequences through the ABC songs. Besides, the
different types of musical instruments in the music learning centre allow children to learn
new words when teacher introducing different types of musical instruments.

Music may also develop childrens motor skills through movement while singing songs.
Dancing in the music centre would help children to develop their hand and eye coordination
where children tend to follow the dancing steps from their teacher. Dancing are also helps
children to control their arm and legs movement. Hand and finger control can also be
practised through different nursery rhymes such as Five Little Ducks and also Itsy Bitsy
Spider.

4.0 Activities in Creative Centre

Creative centre are usually a good place where teacher carry out ad-hoc activities after the
main lesson in their classroom. The activities that will further explain in this section will be
supermarket in the farm dramatic play in dramatic centre.

4.1 Supermarket Lesson at Dramatic Centre

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 Subject Learning Centre (Dramatic)
Topic : Supermarket Dramatic Centre
Duration of time : 10.15-11.00am
Integrated Strands : Intellectual and Social
Learning Standard KD 3.2.1, 3.2.2
Objective 1. Children should be able to pretend going to market
or to the grocery store to buy some fruits or other
grocery
2. Children should be able to play cooperatively with
their peers.
3. Children should be able to different products and
items can be found in supermarket.
Values : Compassion, cooperation
Previous knowledge : Pupils already learnt about places nearby their
neighbourhood which include supermarket. Pupils already
learn about purpose of going to supermarket, things or
Items can be found in the supermarket.
Teaching
Steps Activities Notes
Aids
Set Induction 1. Teacher will introduce to children the
Supermarket Song by Peter Weatherall
2. Teacher to get children to share their experience of
going to supermarket.
Step 1 Let the children dress up and pretend to go to the
market to buy some food, or grocery items.
Step 2 Encourage children to name the things they bought from
the market/ grocery store.
Step 3 Children are required to to purchase items from money
using printed money notes and coins.
Step 4 Teacher encourage the children to use phrases like
thank you, please and youre welcome.

Closure 1. Teacher to recap of items / products we can buy

from supermarkets.
2. Teacher to get children to share their experience
During their pretend play in the dramatic centre.
5.0 Observation of the childrens level of engagement and creativity during the
activity

During the activity at dramatic centre, children are able to show their understanding that they
are pretending to buy things from supermarket. They told me that the dramatic centre look
alike the scene when they go supermarket with their family. They mentioned that their family
members use the shopping trolley cart while they purchase goods from supermarket and one

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of the children she pretending that she are mummy pushing the shopping trolley. With these,
they do improve their empathy skills where they are able to put themselves in others shoes to
pretend their roles as daddy or mummy pushing the trolley cart.

They also aware that after finish purchase goods from supermarket they will need to pay. One
of the children even pretending himself are the cashier busying help the other children for
payment. However, as they do not have any prior knowledge on money notes and coins, they
do have much expose on the money in the cash register machine. By introducing them the
money notes they are able to identify the purpose of using money and different amount of
notes that we have. Children are creative as they try to search as paper nearby the dramatic
corner pretending that is a wallet as they said that they always see their parents keep money
in a bag. They pretend that the paper is a wallet.

In addition, children able to expose to different materials and toys in the toys in the dramatic
centre. They are able to ask their friend different question such as shall we get 2 carrots?,
do we need to buy some eggs? and do you like to get some milk. With these they can
improve their social skills where they communicate with each other during the pretend play.
They are able to name most of the items in the dramatic centre as stated in the objective in the
activity plan earlier on. They are able to recap those items name that they know and for items
that they do not know and me as a teacher will play my role to introduce the new items to
them.

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Photo 1: Children pretending collecting eggs from farm and prepare for sell

Photo 2: Children pretending as a cashier near cashier counter

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Photo 3: Children pretending as a mummy pushing the shopping trolley

Photo 3: Children pretending buying milk at supermarket

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6.0 Conclusion

To conclude, learning centres is beneficial to young children in their different developmental

areas. Learning through play is a popular method in early childhood setting in 21 st century,
children can learn different types of skills they might not able to get during formal lesson
time. Young children might not able to focus on lesson time for long hours as they might get
bored. To make lesson more interesting, teachers should incorporate activities in different
learning centres. There are different learning centres that may be included in a preschool or
childcare centre such as art centre, dramatic centre and music centre.

The learning centres should be fully utilise by teacher to bring their children to improve their
different developmental area. In art centre, children might benefit in terms of improving their
creativity skills, cognitive development as well as vocabulary skills. While in music centre,
children may learn about different sounds, rhythm and also explore themselves with different
types of musical instruments. In addition, dramatic centre is a great place for children to
improve their social and emotional development, to learn on empathy, fine and gross motor
skills development and also language development. According to Smith & Pellegrini (2008)
sociodramatic play, common from around 3 years of age, is pretend play with others,
sustained role taking, and a narrative line. It can involve understanding others intent,
sophisticated language constructions, and development of (sometimes) novel and intricate
story lines. Smith & Pellegrini (2008) also mentioned that children negotiate meanings and
roles (You be daddy, right?) and argue about appropriate behaviour (No, you dont feed
the baby like that!).

The different learning centres in Carpediem @ Hilltop preschool make the learning path of
young children in the preschool more fun. Children get their chance to learn in different
learning centres in the preschool. For example, for language and literacy lesson teacher may
incorporate lesson in the dramatic area as it may help children to improve their language
while they do their pretend play. The activity chosen in this assignment is in the dramatic area
as the current theme in the school was about my community whereby children learn about
different places nearby their neighbourhood area. Children use their past experiences of
where they went supermarket with their parents to act out the scenario in supermarket. This
can help children in terms of cognitive development, which this is their abstract thinking of
using their past experiences in the supermarket.

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References

Aquino, F. (1991). Cantos para jugar 1 (Songs for playing 1). Mexico, DF: Trillas.

Cuffaro, M. A. (2011). Fine Motor Skills. In Encyclopedia of Child Behavior and

Development (pp. 657-657). Springer US.

Hirsh-Pasek, K., Golinkoff, R.M., Berk, L.E., & Singer, D.G. (2009). A mandate for playful
learning in preschool: Presenting the evidence, New York, NY: Oxford University
Press.

Marie, E. (n.d.). How Dramatic Play Can Enhance Learning. Retrieved from
http://www.earlychildhoodnews.com/earlychildhood/article_view.aspx?articleid=751

Michael, C. (n.d.). Early School Readiness Series Preparing Children for Kindergarten:
Learning Centers. Retrieved from
https://www.iidc.indiana.edu/styles/iidc/defiles/ECC/LearningCenters.pdf

Morrison, G. S. (2014). Early childhood education today. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson, c2014.

Rohani Abdullah. (2015). HBEC1203 Cognitive Development. Malaysia. Open University

Malaysia.

Sarah Punkoney. (2017). THE INCREDIBLE BENEFITS OF DRAMATIC PLAY. Retrieved

from http://stayathomeeducator.com/the-benefits-of-dramatic-play-in-early-childhood-
education/

Smith, P. K., & Pellegrini, A. (2008). Learning through play. Encyclopedia on early
childhood development, 1-6.

Upitis, R. (2011). Arts education for the development of the whole child. Toronto, ON:
Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario.

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