According to Lew and Campbell (2005), "The musical play of children is a worldwide phenomenon...Play is an important medium for learning in young children's lives-wherever they may be. It assists them in their development of language and reasoning skills, and it fosters social competence and peer-group interaction." Below, I have included a video of a children's circle game filmed in Haiti. I have a small population of students in my school who have immigrated from Haiti. This circle game reminds me of many activities I do in my classroom. The students form a circle, someone in the center picks a student for a specific reason, then the new student is left to repeat the process. Circle games, such as this, are very important for child development no matter what song is being sung during the game. Students are forced to socialize with new students, use reasoning skills when determining who to pick, and then also building their musical skills by continuing the song during play. A goal for my classroom is to find a circle game from Haiti, such as the one in the video, to sing and play with my students. This would be a great way to connect my Haitian students to the rest of the student population, while also opening an opportunity to discuss life in Haiti.
Resource: Lew, J. C., & Campbell, P. S. (2005). Children's Natural and Necessary Musical Play: Global Context, Local Applications. Music Educators Journal, 91(5), 57-62. Retrieved November 24, 2017.
Title of Piece: Haitian schoolyard song and dance
Performers: school-aged children and adults
Culture of Origin: Haiti
Instrumentation: voice and body percussion
Kellie,
ReplyDeleteI'm glad that you are exposing different types of circle games with your students because, as you cited from Lew and Campbell (2005), students gain myriad of skills from socialization to language acquisition! Instead of you finding a circle game from Haiti, how would you feel about asking one of your Haitian students to teach you the game? I imagine this could be beneficial in many ways for both you and your students.