Browsing by Subject "taidekasvatus"

This study examines and describes sense of belonging of seventeen preschoolers in groups where art education is the main support for children with special educational needs to support their learning and developing. Children were interviewed twice in autumn and in spring. Preschool groups were part of Taikava-project and in all groups art educators were working every weekday in early childhood education instead of group assistants. Art educators were working with other early childhood educators. This study examines possibilities to support children with art education and especially in sense of belonging. The theoretic part of this study is about the possibilities of art education to support children with special needs. In Vantaa there has been quite similar project before, TaikaVoima, but the art educators did not work fulltime in day care centers in that project. TaikaVoima- projects results proved to encourage children with special needs and affirm the sense of belonging in their groups. This study has both qualitative and quantitative data and results. In this study there were 17 preschoolers interviewed twice in a year. Seven of these children were having special educational needs. Additionally it was examined kindergarten teachers perceptions of children's behavior and art educators and kindergarten teachers group work about the challenges and the targets for the first year of the project. Children's experiences were scrutinized with three different material by method of triangulation. This qualitative research has phenomenological and hermeneutical features. It is researching the world in which preschoolers are living in, and their experiences in their groups and the meaning of their experiences. The awareness and knowledge of preschoolers about their own skills and abilities and challenges did deepen during the interviews. Children had learned new social skills and skills to express themselves with art educators. Children need more support from educators to understand the needs of other children and to learn to help and take others in to account. Children were positive surprised of the help that other children gave them. They were also surprised of the new friends and games that came out if educators decided playmates.

Aim of this study. This qualitative study aims to describe, analyse, and interpret what and how 7-8-year-old children express themselves in their art club during the art handicraft project. The starting point of this art project was a story created by the children. Previous studies show that art education and handicraft provides children space, time and place for self-expression for children. Also, according to previous studies, art-oriented handicraft enables the creator to reflect on their own activities in relation to their work and social environment. My research questions are 1. How expression is seen and heard when a child is doing art handicraft? 2. How playfulness manifests itself in children’s handicraft process? Methods. This child-oriented study observes children’s expression on child-perspective. The data was collected in the spring 2022 at the children's cultural centre in Southern Finland. Four 7–8-year-old children took part of this study. This video-based data was collected during two prearranged meetings. The data includes also field notes. Results and conclusions. Results view the process of the art club practice with the help of examples. Results show how children express themselves verbally and non-verbally during the art handicraft project. The real world and fantasy were intertwined and made visible in the children's expressions: self-made words and trendy reality, everyday life in play, imagination and entertaining was seen in the results. Results show how leisure time art and art handicraft allows children the space, time, place and safe atmosphere to express themselves meaningfully for themselves. Taking the child’s verbal and non-verbal narration into account children make their life visible for adults in their life.