Teacher Feature: Infant Class Explores Music

Posted on April 2, 2015 by francisag

It’s Teacher Feature Thursday!

This week we are featuring Katy Martins, Nessa Moghadam, and Noel Ulmer. Their infant class was all about sound so they decided to do a unit learning about music. Below you will find a reflection from the team and images from their lessons.

Music_Cover

What were your topics of exploration?

We were exploring music and dance.

What were your learning objectives? (What did you want your children to take away from the lesson?)

We wanted to expose the class to new sounds and spaces and encourage them to try out new ways to move their body (for example: clap their hands, bounce, etc.).

What was most successful about your lesson?

We found that this topic was a great way to get the whole class involved. Each child was given the opportunity to explore different instruments and experiment with their new environment no matter their level of mobility.

What could you have done differently? What recommendations would you have for another teacher trying out this lesson?

We suggest to other educators to have a plan for helping each child enjoy the museum visit. Bring along boppies and blankets to help those children who can’t sit up or aren’t quite as mobile.

Here are a few images from their unit on music:

The class started their unit on music at the National Museum of American History to see guitars from the 1960s. The educators brought along instruments for the children to use and a print of Juan Gris’ Guitar, Newspaper, Glass to use as an additional comparison.

The teachers also invited a parent to come in to play a guitar for the class. Throughout this lesson the children were shown prints of guitars, a collection of different types of guitars, and given opportunity to hear and play the guitar. By providing multiple touch points it illustrated to the children that the same object can sound and look different but still have the same name.
The class then moved on to the piano. A SEEC educator from the toddler classroom came to play some music with the children.
They had a wonderful time exploring the keyboard and hearing the different sounds it could make.

Katy, Nessa, and Noel then introduced the children to a genre of music, Bollywood. The class went up to the Beyond Bollywood Exhibit: Indian Americans Shape the Nation (http://smithsonianapa.org/beyondbollywood/) at the National Museum of Natural History to listen to music, play some instruments, and try out some dance moves.

The educators brought along a blanket for the children to help make the space feel cozy and welcoming. The children had a wonderful time using the instruments and seeing themselves in the mirror.

The group then hopped into the strollers to listen to some of the Bollywood music found in the gallery.

Their last stop was outside of the exhibit to see large mirrors with images of different dancers. The educators helped demonstrate some of the poses and a few of the infants even tried them out.

This class had a wonderful time learning about music! Be sure to check back for our Teacher Feature next week!

Kindergartners and Exhibit Design, Part I

Posted on December 19, 2013 by shoemakerb

That there is a national emphasis on the value of early childhood education goes without saying. So it makes good sense that museums are starting to think more about how they serve this audience. At the Smithsonian Early Enrichment Center, our students generally visit museums 3-5 times a week; it’s a space in which they are comfortable and familiar. So when staff at the National Museum of American History wanted to understand more about how young children interact with exhibits, they thought of SEEC. Through a series of discussions, the staff agreed upon using Little Golden Books, an exhibit with obvious kid-appeal, to examine how children felt about their exhibit design. Similarly, SEEC wanted to see the exhibit through the eyes of their students in order to inform our own teaching practices and professional development. Finally, we decided to experiment with SEEC’s Kindergarten class because, at the end of the year, they will be asked to create their very own exhibitions. The experience seemed like a great way to support their endeavor.

We planned two visits to the exhibit. The first visit was simply to familiarize the students with the content and the layout of the space. Prior to going to the museum, Sara Cardello, Museum Educator, planned an interactive, hands-on lesson in which the students identified parts of the exhibit; i.e. object, case, label etc. and introduced them to Golden Books. Almost all of them immediately recognized the Golden Books and were anxious to share their personal stories with the class.

Museum1

We headed over to the exhibit and first, met with the exhibit designer. We then took turns walking through the exhibit in small groups, each with either a classroom or museum educator. During that time, the children got to look and ask questions. Educators came prepared with specific questions to encourage them to think about the exhibit. Below are some of the questions and some of their answers.

What do you see, notice, or what is the exhibit showing you?

Really old books
TV screen helps us read the books
Some of the books have interesting ideas
Each display case has a theme: doctor, transportation, mining, cooking
Measurements along the sides of the larger illustrations
Really old (again)
Some are dusty
Some are new
Golden strip

What do you hear?

Wanted to hear the stories
Kind of loud because we are all in here
No music
Too loud
Conversations about all of our observations

What are you learning, thinking about, what would you add?

Who is in the picture with Mickey and Donald?
Beautiful, looks painted
I see some letters, and I see the same letters, but different pictures (referring to Little Golden Books)
I would add a kids book, like Toy Story 3, even though these are kids books
I would add toys that you see in the books to play with

Who is the exhibit for, who would like this exhibit?

Me and my mom would like this, she read these books
My grandma likes to read
Grandma and grandpa would like them because they haven’t seen them in years
Bullies would not like it because they do not like books
Giants would be too big and they like to break stuff

In addition to these questions, we had some open-ended discussions based on their responses to the objects. Here is an example of one such discussion.

When looking at the case displaying the Here Comes the Parade the students quickly identified Donald Duck and Mickey, but were stumped when it came to Howdy Doody. This was a great time for us to look at the label and see if we could get some more information. Although the name didn’t ring a bell, it did give us a chance to talk about when the book was made and how our parents or grandparents might know about this character. I asked this group if they could tell me where they thought the characters were and after some investigation, they concluded it was a parade. This line of inquiry prompted me to share my own experiences watching the parade on Thanksgiving morning. This encouraged others to share their own Thanksgiving traditions and/or recollections of parades. It was a great conversation and before we knew it, we had been standing at that case for close to 10 minutes, which is considerable for a Kindergartner.

Following the visit to the exhibit, we had a chance to debrief as a whole group (there are 18 students in the class). Below is a glimpse of that discussion.

What did you notice?

A new book, Little Red Hen
An interesting book about cars
A girl cleaning up
Boy and girl playing doctor
I noticed #65 on one of the books

Who would like this exhibit?

Grandma and grandpa would like it because they haven’t seen them in years
Grandma and grandpa would like the books because they would remember them
Moms and dads like books, they would like to visit

How did you feel about the exhibit?

Really like it because they are lots of interesting books to see
Cool. Cool books, cool answers, moms and dads would like it too
I felt surprised when I saw the spine but then I realized that’s why it’s called Golden Books

What would you add or change?

More books!
Add books that you might know
You could bring your own Golden Books once you were done with them
Add a book or a chair to look at books
I love Golden Books
I would add airplanes, they are more interesting
I would add my own books

What questions do you have for the curator or designer?

Why did you choose Golden Books?
Why do they make Golden Books?
Dinosaurs are big and you have to think about cases and storage, you have to think about the size of objects for exhibits

How much did it cost to build this exhibit?

$100 because books can break easily
$60 because book are expensive
$15 because it is a really big exhibit

Kindergartners and Exhibit Design, Part II

Posted on December 19, 2013 by shoemakerb

Kindergarten Exhibit Survey, Pt. 1

Kindergarten Exhibit Survey, Pt. 2

In our last blog, we discussed the first part of our experiment with SEEC kindergartners visiting the Smithsonian National Museum of American History Golden Books exhibit. When we left off, they had just concluded their first visit. The following week, they went to the museum again and like the previous time, we split them up into small groups of three. Each group had an adult and walked through the exhibit with an educator and were given a “survey.” After these were completed in the exhibit, they headed out to a small circle to discuss their observations with another educator.

The Results

1) Look at the other people do they like this exhibit?
Comments:

Looking closely
Beautiful
Pretty good
Really liking it
Liked it
Enjoying everything
Looking at computer
Looking at all sorts of books
Enjoying it
One person was normal, so…so-so
Some were in to it, some were not
1 vote for all 5 choices
All the people were different

2) Look at the objects; do you like how they are displayed?
Comments:

Lots of color, some were dusty
Loved them
They books were having a good time because they were safe in the glass and no robbers were breaking in
Could not see, too tall
Pretty good
Pretty good, a little bad though because it only showed one page of the book
Didn’t like, hard to see

3) Look at the lights; do you like how they are used?
Lights Graph

Comments

Dark but good
Pretty good
1 vote for Liked
Orange, it was ok, and I liked it
ok

4) Look at the colors; do you like how they are used?
Colors Graph

Comments

The ceiling was green, there were good colors
A lot of white

5) Look at the signs, are they helpful?

Signs Graph

Comments

Really focused about creation, someone worked very hard

6) Look at the computers; do you like how they were used?

computer Graph

Comments

I clicked on two books
You could look at the books, I pressed the button and it read the story to us
Really cool
I touched it
I didn’t get to touch it
I chose different books, it was awesome, and not too tall
I liked pressing buttons
Zooming in was cool
It shows the books

7) Look for things you can touch, did they help you enjoy the exhibit?
Touching Graph

Comments

Only one thing to touch
Touching the computer
Computer was just ok
I wish there was more stuff to touch, more computers with newer books
No touching uhhhhh

Outcomes

I was surprised that they found the lighting and signs appealing. Like any exhibit featuring paper, it is a dark space, and I assumed that would be unappealing. Interestingly when the exhibit designer talked to the students during their first visit, he mentioned that the low lighting help protect the books. I wonder if that made a difference. I also wonder if it was the spotlighting to which they felt drawn. Despite the overall darkness, light was strategically positioned to make the cases pop. There was minimal distraction.

I was also intrigued by their positive reaction to the signs. Many in the group are emergent readers and I thought the labels would have been of little or no interest to them. I wonder if they were responding to the fact that the educators, many of whom were not familiar with the exhibit’s content, used the labels to help add to their conversations.

That they responded positively to the colors and book illustrations was no shock. Children are naturally drawn to strong, vibrant visuals. They are also naturally drawn to things they can touch or tinker with. The opportunity to play with the computer at the end of the exhibit got them very excited and made them notice more about the objects in the cases, encouraging them to revisit objects and think more deeply about some of their conversations. Interestingly, the computer engaged many of the children, but not all. Some of them were frustrated because they weren’t certain how to work it, but I guess usability for young children is another topic entirely!

Although we didn’t measure this in the survey, its important to note that the children responded to the content of the exhibit. They were familiar with Golden Books and could make connections to the illustrations, many of which depicted children playing. At SEEC, we encourage our educators to utilize familiar objects or themes when teaching. Finding this thread can be difficult when considering the often nuanced and complex nature of many exhibits. Still, I would encourage museum staff to consider how they can incorporate familiar elements as a way to engage a young child’s interest in new content.