Reem
2013
Active learning through play and creative arts
Reem
2013
Active learning through play and creative arts

Play and creative arts are important aspects of children’s learning that are being used in kindergartens. This action research project explores the using of play and creative arts in a kindergarten classroom. The purpose of this study is to evaluate and analyze how play and creative arts activities enhance and support children’s learning in literacy and numeracy lessons. Qualitative methods were used to gain data that reflect on the implementation of play and creative arts strategies and activities in teaching and the interpretation collected from participants. The three types of tools that used to collect data are observations, interviews and a reflective journal to ensure validity of results. After analyzing the data, two interrelated themes emerged. The first theme highlights the benefits of play and creative arts in early childhood. The second theme shows the benefits of using them can support literacy and numeracy development. Consequently play and creative arts seems to promote development in children’s learning processes and they also offer the learners’ confidence in their learning. To conclude, this study shows that play and creative arts may have positive effect in improving the children’s overall performance and attitudes.
Play and creative arts are important aspects of children’s learning that are being used in kindergartens. This action research project explores the using of play and creative arts in a kindergarten classroom. The purpose of this study is to evaluate and analyze how play and creative arts activities enhance and support children’s learning in literacy and numeracy lessons. Qualitative methods were used to gain data that reflect on the implementation of play and creative arts strategies and activities in teaching and the interpretation collected from participants. The three types of tools that used to collect data are observations, interviews and a reflective journal to ensure validity of results. After analyzing the data, two interrelated themes emerged. The first theme highlights the benefits of play and creative arts in early childhood. The second theme shows the benefits of using them can support literacy and numeracy development. Consequently play and creative arts seems to promote development in children’s learning processes and they also offer the learners’ confidence in their learning. To conclude, this study shows that play and creative arts may have positive effect in improving the children’s overall performance and attitudes.
Abstract
Abstract

Acknowledgment
I have taken efforts in this project. However, it would not have been possible without the kind support and help of many individuals. I would like to extend my sincere thanks to all of those who provided me the possibility to complete this action research. I would like to acknowledge with much appreciation the crucial role of the staff of Ms. Phyllis, who gave the permission to use all required equipment and the necessary materials to complete the task “Active learning through play and creative arts”. Last but not least, a special gratitude I give to our final year project teacher, Dr. Neil Hunt, whose contribution in stimulating suggestions and encouragement, helped me to coordinate my research especially in writing this report. He also have invested his full effort in guiding the team in achieving the goal. I have to appreciate the guidance given by other supervisor as well as the panels especially in our project presentation that has improved our presentation skills thanks to their comment and advices.

Biography
Originally from Al Ain, Reem Khamis Al Shamsi has a degree in Early Childhood Education from the Higher Colleges of Technology in Al Ain. She has worked in different government and private schools in Al Ain as well as gained different experiences from other organizations like hospitals and banks. As an educator, she hopes to make UAE kindergartens a foundation for lifelong learning.

Contents 2.1. Active learning and play 4 2.2.1. Advantages of integrating play into the classroom 4 2.1.2. Teacher’s role in active learning and play 6 2.1.3. Play in literacy lessons 6 2.1.4. Play in Numeracy lessons 7 2.2. Creative arts in early years 7 2.2.1. Advantages of integrating creative arts into the classroom 7 2.2.2. The teacher’s role in creative arts 8 2.2.3. Creative arts in Literacy and Numeracy lessons 9 4.1. Play and creative art in literacy lessons 14 4.1.1. The Caterpillar pattern 14 4.1.2. The K King craft activity 14 4.1.3. The Handprint spider 15 4.2. Play and creative art in numeracy lessons 15 4.2.1. Frame pattern and number 7 design activity 15 4.2.2. The Spider patterns activity 16 4.1. Benefits of using play and creative art in early childhood 17 4.2. Play and creative art can support literacy and numeracy development 18 Appendix 1 (Action Plan) 28 Appendix 2 (Interview) 29 Appendix 3 (Observations) 31 Appendix 4 (Reflective Journal) 32 Appendix 5 (Participant Confidentiality) 34 Appendix 6 (Parents and Principal confidentiality) 35 Appendix 7 (The caterpillar patterns activity) 36 Appendix 8 (The K king craft activity) 37 Appendix 9 ( Hand print spider activity) 38 Appendix 10 (Frame patterns and Number 7 designing activities) 39 Appendix 11 (Spider patterns activity) 40

Chapter 1: Introduction and action research methodology
This is my action research report in which I will discuss active learning through play and creative arts. There are some reasons for choosing this topic for my research. The first reason is that during my learning experience, I learned by just being taught by using paper and pencils and without any activities. In other words, I learned by being passive in the classroom. Therefore, in my teaching, I would like all the children to be active learners instead of being passive learners.
In addition, through my observations and my experiences in different schools, I noticed that not many of the teachers use active learning with their children and particularly the Arabic teachers.
Additionally, active learning through play and creative arts might encourage and support the children’s multiple intelligences and I would like to encourage the children who I teach to develop their hobbies and interests. I did this action research project in a kindergarten in a city in the United Arab Emirates. This kindergarten was opened two years ago and uses the New School Model that follows Abu Dhabi Education Council’s (ADEC) curriculum. The ADEC curriculum is a new approach that is applied in the UAE to improve students’ learning experiences. The school has fifteen classrooms - seven classes for KG1 and eight classes for KG2. There are 375 students in the whole school who are grouped into 25 students in each classroom with 2 teachers. I taught KG 2 children who are between 4-5 years old and are in the pre-operational stage (Mooney, 2000). I had 25 students with 2 main teachers in the classroom. All the children that I have are native Arabic speakers and are all Emirati. One of the teachers is Arabic who teaches Arabic and Islamic studies and the other one is the licensed teacher who teaches English, Math and Science. These two teachers have long experience in teaching young children. The English teacher, Ms. P, has been teaching for twenty-five years and has taught every grade from nursery to 5th grade but most of her teaching experience has been in the preschool/kindergarten area. During her first three years of teaching, she taught in a combined grade 3/4 class which was a challenge teaching two classes at the same time and in the same room. Moreover, the Arabic teacher, Ms. M, has also long experience in teaching young children and has been a teacher for more than 15 years. She started her teaching in the UAE and still she works in a UAE government school.
I carried out this research using the action research cycle. Whitehead & Mcniff (2010) state that “Action research is about finding ways to improve your practice, so it is about creating knowledge. The knowledge you create is knowledge of practice.” (p.7). Furthermore, Richards & Lockhart (1994) state that it “seeks to bring about change in classrooms” (p.12), therefore emphasizing that that action research involves positive change where the researcher can progress his/her teaching through doing a research project.
I used the action research process to do this research report. Firstly, I selected a topic for my research after I identified an area of focus. The topic was about creative art and then I searched and reviewed the literature of my topic and I found out that creative art is part of play, so I integrated active play and creative art into my topic. Then during the first three weeks of my teaching practice, I observed how active learning and play and creative art were implemented by the teachers in the classroom and how the children responded to these methods. During the second part of teaching practice, I implemented the research by applying a range of active learning as well as creative arts activities in my class.
In the first part of my teaching practice, I used three different types of tools to collect data which were interviews, observations and a reflective journal. I had a conversation between me and Ms. P which was just one interview, I asked her a few questions about her teaching of my topic and her opinion in general. This conversation was an e-mail interview because she didn’t have enough time to have an oral conversation with me and also it is easy for me to get the transcript of the interview written instead of losing time in writing it. The second tool was an observation where I observed Ms. P once and focused on how she applied play and creative art in the class. A reflective journal is the third tool that I used to collect data. Therefore, I wrote one reflective journal for my teaching during the first part of my teaching practice in the KG classroom. I used this journal when I observed and evaluated the teacher’s teaching in the KG2 classroom. The results of this showed that it appears that there is use of play and creative art but not as much as I believe that they should be used. After I used these three tools to collect my data, I made an action plan that I implemented in the second part of my teaching practice.
Hypotheses:
My action plan (Appendix 1 ) for the second teaching practice was to plan and carry out play and creative arts activities each week for both literacy and numeracy lessons. Therefore this research project examines the relationship of my beliefs and my classroom practices and was guided by the following questions:
. What are the benefits of using play and creative art in early childhood?
. How can play and creative art support literacy and numeracy development?

Chapter 2: Literature review
In this literature review, I discuss definitions of active learning and play and creative art. I then consider the benefits of each of them in the classroom. Finally, I mention the ideas of supporting play and creativity in the classroom.
2.1. Active learning and play

In early years education, active learning can be similar to play and there is not much difference between each of them (Hunt, 2012). In other words, active learning could be part of play because through play, children are active. Bonwell (1991) states that “… all learning is inherently active and that students are therefore actively involved” (p. iii). In other words, students have to participate in all learning that they are given by the teacher. This is supported by Jackson (2003) who defines active learning as a “concept rather than a true educational model… it has people participate in their own learning process by involving them in some type of activity where they physically become a part of the lesson” (p.2). This emphasizes that in active learning children participate in their learning by involving them mentally and physically in the lesson as well as being part of the lesson.
2.2.1. Advantages of integrating play into the classroom

It is important to integrate play into the curriculum for the development of early years’ children because during kindergarten, children are developing in many stages: socially, emotionally, and physically (Graue, 2009). Play can improve children’s social skills through participating and working with their friends in pairs or groups, so they might build relationships with others.
Through that they might be able to express their emotions and feelings to their friends as well as respecting others’ feelings and needs. In addition, play can support their physical skills when they will need to move, dance, run and use their body to move. Wood & Attfield (2005) claim “Play enables children to integrate and consolidate a wealth of experiences that enhance their cognitive, physical, social and emotional development”.

There are many researchers who support that active learning and play is helpful for young children’s learning. For example, Roussou (2004) states that play s helpful for young children’s learning because “Play can unite imagination and intellect in more than one way and help children discover things at their own pace and in their own way” (p.5). So children can discover many things by themselves in different ways while they are playing. The teacher is in the classroom to monitor and evaluate how the students are interacting and behaving with each other. As Jackson states “active learning allows teachers to observe their students as they interact with each other.” (p.17). Therefore, active learning helps the teacher to observe the children and assess their learning to be able to plan for the next lessons.
In addition Samuelsson (2007) also mentions that “Play has often been seen as children’s work and children’s natural way of acting in their surrounding world” (p.13). A common reason for this is that children will not notice or focus on the people around them while they are playing and exploring, so they play and act naturally. As Bruce (2004) states “Play helps children to prepare for adult life by letting them in a natural way, practice…” (p. 31). Therefore, this is another reason for letting children play naturally is that it might encourage children to develop themselves and prepare for adult life.
Another advantage of play is that it “helps children to develop their intelligence” (Bruce, 2011,
p. 41). This can happen when the teacher prepares active play and activities according to the child’s way of learning such as, language, logic-mathematics, spatiality, kinesthesis, musicality, interpersonal, and intrapersonal . In addition, Bruce (ibid) states that “Play helps children to become abstract thinkers” (p.43). This can occur because children do not have to do everything in one place and time because they can remember back and think forward in time. Remembering can happen when they leave the game or activity and return to do it at another time they would like. In addition, they can think forward or plan while they are playing and deciding what they are going to do next.
The final advantage as Jackson (2003) states is that in activities, students are motivated, each person takes responsibility for his/her own learning and allows for correction of failure. Therefore, students are more motivated because it is easier to teach children while they think they are playing and enjoying themselves. The children may take responsibility for their own learning when they make decision about what they have to do and how to solve problems that they might have after their decisions making. Additionally, children can think about solving problems and correcting failures by stopping, discussing other options and starting the activity again.
2.1.2. Teacher’s role in active learning and play

In order for play to be successful, the teacher also needs to have an active role. Jackson (1993) gives several teacher’s roles in active play. For example, he/she should be personally enthusiastic about the activities which means that no one will be excited about the activity if the teacher comes across as bored with the whole thing. Another role is to maintain control over the students during the activity. This means to keep a close watch on the children as they are participating in the activity to observe, evaluate and to make sure that they are safe. Moreover, the teacher should be aware of the children’s abilities. Additionally, the role of the teacher is to be the time keeper for the activities that require time periods.
Moreover, Isenbery & Jalongo (2001) mention another important aspect of the teacher’s role is to support children. For instance, teachers have to observe and respond to individual children’s work to enhance their confidence with positive comments about their artistic products. Another teachers’ role is to initiate a theme, select the most appropriate materials and guide all the children in discussing and mastering specific techniques for producing art and helping them to be proud of themselves.
2.1.3. Play in literacy lessons

I now discuss why the teacher can use play in teaching literacy lessons. Mielonen & Paterson (2009) state that “It is apparent that literacy skills may evolve naturally during play for young children.”. This change could be happening while children are playing, because they are learning literacy not only through the skills such as reading but also through other literacy skills such as writing which the teacher might not planned to use it during that lesson. They might be able to use listening and speaking skills to deal with their friends. Mooney (2000) mentions that “Language and development build on each other when children play, they constantly use language.” (p.83). In other words, children use the spoken language naturally while they play to deal and communicate with each other as well as with the teacher. They also can use the other literacy skills in learning through play and getting experiences through them. As Saracho and Spodek (2006) state ‘During play children participate in reading and writing experiences that develop the literacy skills they need for formal reading instruction’ (p.716).
2.1.4. Play in Numeracy lessons

Using play in numeracy lessons might have positive effects in children’s learning. Clemson & Clemson (1994) state that “We can influence young children’s keenness to learn mathematics by making the task we do of interest to them” (p.19). Therefore, we can do the tasks and activities interesting to them by involving play in their learning. Some areas of play have been particularly linked with mathematical learning are block play, sand play, water play and dramatic play but all play has mathematical potential (Perry & Conroy, 1994). Therefore, teachers could utilize these types of play in their early childhood classroom to encourage the children’s learning.
2.2. Creative arts in early years

Creative arts are the second way to teach young children with. Farlex (2012) defines creative arts as a “term used to describe different types of art specifically to introduce fine art ideas, techniques, skills and media”, so arts can be used to cover drama, music, visual art and dance.
There are many goals of using creative art in the classroom. One of the main aims is “to develop learners as creative, imaginative individuals who appreciate the arts and who have the basic knowledge and skills to participate in arts activities” (n.a, 2011). Therefore, using creative arts in KG is a first step of building the children’s artistic skills.
2.2.1. Advantages of integrating creative arts into the classroom

Creative art can be a wonderful tool for teaching children not only developmental skills, but also academic subjects such as math, science, and literacy (Hunt, 2012). Integrating creative arts into the early years’ classroom can help children’s learning to be more successful and effective, for as Reyner (n.d) states “When children study any given concept, they learn it better and retain it longer if they do an art activity that reinforces that learning”.
A second advantage of creative arts is they can help students to develop the ability to imagine and predict what a task might be and accept responsibility to complete tasks from start to finish to find out what they were doing. (Americans for the Arts, 2009). This can develop generic skills which may influence their learning in other areas of the curriculum. The third benefit is that it can encourage imagination and critical thinking, and refine cognitive and creative skills, so when the child does any art work he/she can design and create any new product by using his/her imagination. (ibid). In addition, Miller (2012) states that “By learning through art, students can have the opportunity to expand their thinking in all areas of study”, therefore creative art can support children’s thinking and help them to find better understanding of subjects like Math, Science and English. In addition, creative art can play a role in developing children’s life experiences which might benefit their future, educational and employment life, for as Fisher (2006) states, “creativity prepares them with the flexible skills they will need to face an uncertain future”.
A final advantage as Habib (n.d) mentions is that “Children who are encouraged to think creatively show increased levels of motivation and self-esteem”. Therefore, the action of being creative can by motivating in itself.
2.2.2. The teacher’s role in creative arts

There are many things that teachers can do to support children’s art work in the classroom. For example, Edwards & Springate (1995) mention several teachers’ roles of supporting children’s creativity. One role is to give the children more time to do their best in their work because creativity does not follow the clock. Another role is to provide a wide space and time for them to finish their work next day if they didn’t finish it during the same day. This can also encourage the children to do their best work. Moreover, teachers have to organize useful material for the children to use and explain or demonstrate how to use it, but the teacher should not tell children what to do.
Stewart (2012) also mentions another part of the teacher’s role is to allow the children to make decisions because it is an important aspect of their art schema. In other words, let the children make the decisions of how to create and design their art work because when children are told where to place each piece or where to paint the colors, they lose self-confidence in their own ability to make good choices and the creative process no longer belongs to the child.
Another teacher’s role to support children’s creativity mentioned by Duffy (2006) is to “recognize the importance of knowing when to be silent, when to encourage, when to inspire and when to help”. (p. 15), so teachers need to know and recognize when she needs to talk and explain to the children, when she needs to encourage them during the activity, when to give advice, when to leave the child alone and give them space.
There are so many roles that teachers can use with supporting students’ creativity but the roles that I mentioned are the most significant roles that can let the teacher support and encourage children’s creativity and decision making.
2.2.3. Creative arts in Literacy and Numeracy lessons

Creative arts activities can be an effective way to encourage literacy and language development. For example, “Children who draw pictures of stories they have read improve their reading comprehension, and are motivated to read new material” (Deasy & Stevenson, 2002). In other words, children’s reading can be improved by illustrations and pictures.

Chapter 3: Research Methodology

This chapter shows the research methodology and the data collection tools that I used in the second part of my teaching practice with justification of each tool’s purposes and samples of each of them. Finally, I discuss ethical considerations.
This report is an action research project which “is a research done by teachers for themselves, it is not imposed on them by someone else” (Mills, 2007, p.5). There are some benefits of doing action research for me as a teacher. For example, Hamston (2007) mentions that “by action research, teachers are encouraged to reflect on their teaching, to think about what is happening in the classroom and to come up with possible alternatives to solve any problems they might encounter as they teach.” (p.10). This means that teachers have the opportunity to notice what is going on their classroom, reflect on their teaching and solve problems that they might face. Moreover, action research helps me as a teacher to improve my teaching and knowledge about my teaching.
There is a process of action research that the researcher can use as Sagor (2000) states such as, selecting a focus, clarifying theories, identifying research questions, collecting data, analyzing data, reporting results and taking action. Consequently, I selected my research topic which is active learning through play and creative arts. Then, I read literature to develop my knowledge and then I wrote the questions that I used to guide my collection of data. After that, I collected data to help me to understand how to implement play and creative art in the classroom. . Next, I analyzed and evaluated this data. From this it emerged that the teacher encouraged the children to be creative in their art work by choosing different colors and paints as they would like. Moreover, she supported their learning through play by encouraging them to search for their artwork around the classroom and by recognizing their work or their names. Therefore, it appears that there is use of play and creative art. Finally, I transformed this information into my classroom where I applied the active learning through play and creative arts.
All of the data that I used in my action research are qualitative data which can be “used to gain insight into people’s attitudes, behaviors, value…, concerns, motivations, aspirations, culture or lifestyle” (Joubish, Khurram, Ahmed, & Haider, 2011). Qualitative research concerns collecting interpretations and opinions as discursive texts that analyze actions from participants rather than statistical and numerical data. In other words, I used this type of data collection because it is concerned with people’s experiences and understanding in social situations. It is suitable because it considers teachers’ and learners’ experiences in a classroom. The participants for this study were 2 teachers; one of them was Ms. P who was my School Mentor Teacher and the other teacher was Dr. N who was my College Mentor Teacher. At the kindergarten, I collected these data in the KG2 students’ classroom. Moreover, Troudi (2002) mentions that “data can be collected through the common research tools, such as diaries, interview, questionnaires, tests, classroom observations and field notes.” (p, 192). An interview was the first tool that I used to collect data for my action research.
Interviews are one of the main qualitative tools, as Bums (2000) states “Interviews are a popular and widely used means of collecting qualitative data ... they can be conducted through a variety of participant combinations.” (p. 119). In other words, interviews can be done with different people, such as teacher to teacher, teacher to learner or researcher to teacher. Therefore, I did two interviews with Ms. P which was an email interview which one of them was for the initial investigation and the other one came after my teaching. I asked her some questions that linked with my implementation of my topic. For example, I asked her about how much I used play and creative arts in literacy and numeracy lessons and if it was effective or not. This interview was like a conversation between me and the teacher where I asked her some questions and when she answered them, I asked her other questions that linked to her answers. The benefit of using e-mail interviews as Mills (2003) states is that “The transcription of the interview has already been done for you by the respondent.” (p. 63). This means that all the answers have been written by the person who answered. (Appendix 2).
Observation is another tool that I used to collect my data. Agar (1980) suggests that “information from interviews can serve as the methodological core against which observational data can be used to feed ongoing informal interviews”. This means that interviews and observations go hand in hand and work together. Therefore observation was the second tool of data collection which I used to gain specific information and it “enables teachers to document and reflect systematically upon classroom interaction and events as they actually occur rather than as we think they occur” (Burns, 1999, p.80). Therefore, I asked Ms. P and Dr. N to observe me and focus on how I applied play and creative art in my lessons. (Appendix 3).
My third data collection tool was a reflective journal which Gambhir (2010) defines as “a way of thinking in a critical and analytical way about your work in progress” which means that teachers can observe, get information and think about their teaching. Mills (2003) mentions that it “acts as a narrative technique and records events, thoughts and feelings that have importance for the writer.” (p.67). Therefore, I wrote 2 to 3 reflective journals each week which were about how I implemented play and creative arts in the classroom and how successful the children were as well as what different tools I used in each lesson. (Appendix 4).
One of the most important roles for researcher is to ensure that the research is carried out ethically, which ‘has to do with what my feelings tell me is right or wrong and it has to do what my beliefs." (Velasquez, Andre, Shanks, & Meyer , 2010). In other words, the researcher has to be careful about what is right and what is wrong. Therefore, ethical considerations are critical to make sure that people’s reputations are not harmed. Moreover, Wellington (2000) states that ethical “concerns should be at the forefront of any research project and should continue through to the write-up and dissemination stages” (p. 3). This means that ethics should be ensured through all stages of the research.
Since research frequently includes cooperation with different people in different situations, ethical supports the values that are important to collaborative work with other people. For instance, trust, responsibility and shared respect. Furthermore, ethical standards in research can help to build peoples’ support for research because they likely to help research projects if they can trust the quality, truth and honesty of the research. In ethical research, there are 3 main elements to apply which are anonymity, confidentiality and informed consent. Anonymity means that the researcher should keep the information of the participants who the researcher collected the information from secret and unknown by changing their names and information. Trochim (2006) defines anonymity as being concerned with ensuring that participants’ identity will remain unknown. In this study, I didn’t write the name of the school and the participants so I kept them unknown. I wrote the first letter of the participants’ names rather than their full names.
The second issue is confidentiality which means to ensure that the participants’ information is private as well as the information about the school. Henderson (n.d) defines confidentiality as “The right to rely on the trust or discretion of another; the right of an individual to control access to and disclosure of private information entrusted to another.” In other words, to ensure that the information that researcher is going to use in the research is private unless he/she got the agreement from the participant, so it supports them and keeps them away from being hurt. It mentions that researchers are “Protecting research subjects from harm that might result from their participation in research.” (n.a, National Human Research Protections Advisory Committee, 2002). Therefore, before I wrote any information or data in this research, I got agreement from the participants to allow me to attach it. I did this after I let them trust me by telling them that all their information and data would be only written in my college paper. Additionally, I sent a signed paper for the participants which shows them that it was signed from me and by my mentor Dr. N to confirm its privacy and the participants’ confidentiality. (Appendix 5)
The third important ethical role the researcher requires is to ensure informed consent. Bell (1999) explains that a “Subject should never be expected to sign any protocol form unless they have had time to read and consider the implications.” (p. 39). In other words, the researcher has to give the participants all the information that they need about the research before they sign any agreement documents. Therefore, I sent official documents to the school principal, parents and teachers to inform them about my research and to collect photos and students’ works for evidence. (Appendix 6)

Chapter 4: Implementation of Actions

In this chapter, I describe my teaching strategies that I implemented during the second part of my teaching practice. Moreover, I write a rationale that justifies the use and methods of implementation.
4.1. Play and creative art in literacy lessons

4.1.1. The Caterpillar pattern

I played a game with the whole group of children where I put different objects that start with the letter C and sound /k/ in a box such as, carrot, cow, cat, caterpillar and camel. I asked the children one by one to come and get an object from the box and show it to their friend step by step to give them a clue about what the object is. The children were very active while they were playing this game and they were helping each other to name the object and all of them tried to engage with each other. They were so enthusiastic to know what is in the box. After that, during the focus activity, I provided 4 colored paints on plates with a plastic cup on each paint. I asked them to make a pattern for me (according to the card that they have which has colored circles) by taking each cup in sequence from each paint and putting it on the A4 paper. After that, I asked them to design their work by making a caterpillar. All of the children were creative in designing their work because each of them had his/her unique work that is different from the other children. (Appendix 7).
4.1.2. The K King craft activity

I introduced the letter K to the children and played a game with the whole group of children. The game was to provide the letter K printable flash cards with /k/ on one side and pictures on the other side and I placed them around the classroom. The children searched for the letter and then each of the children kept the card with him/her until they got all the cards. After that, I asked each of them to name the picture that he/ she got and the other children have to agree or disagree about their friends’ answers. Throughout the focus activity, I helped the children to create the letter K king by providing a printable K letter and a crown. The children noticed that they have to cut out the letter and the crown and glued them together. After that they colored them with any colors that they liked. They were very creative in choosing the colors and the ways and places of coloring their product. (Appendix 8).

4.1.3. The Handprint spider

At the beginning of the lesson, I reviewed the words that start with the sound S. They started giving me some words like spider, star, spoon, snake and sun. I introduced some more words for them on PowerPoint and I asked the children one by one to choose a picture and name it on the PowerPoint. After that, I played the video song (Incy Wincy Spider) for them and I encouraged them to sing it with each other by letting one of them be the leader. Through the focus activity, I provided the appropriate materials for the children to create a hand print spider (printable spider body outline and legs, glues, scissors, glitters, colored sand, wiggly eyes and paints). They were very creative while they were doing the activity because they chose different paint colors to print with their fingers as well as different designs with glitters. (Appendix 9).
4.2. Play and creative art in numeracy lessons

4.2.1. Frame pattern and number 7 design activity

I let the children play a ‘searching for the number 7’ game. In this game, I provided number 7 cards and placed them around the classroom. I chose 2 children to search for the numbers but all of the children integrated with them. I placed 7 cards and these 2 children found only 6 cards. Here I asked all the children to find the last card. They were so excited with the game and helpful with each other. Then I played another game with them where I encouraged them to recognize a line of fish, whether they made a pattern or not and let them make a pattern by choosing colored fish and decide how they want to order the colors so they can have patterns. With the focus group, I helped them to create a photo frame where they had to glue their pictures on the frame and also glue colored shapes patterns on it such as, red heart, white star, green leaf and black heart. They were creative in doing the patterns because some of them chose 2 colors and some of them chose 3 colors. The second focus group were gluing glitter on a number 7 printable shape. This group also was creative because some of them put one color that they liked and some of them put the same colors of the UAE flag colors and in different ways. (Appendix 10).
4.2.2. The Spider patterns activity

There was a lot of play in this numeracy lesson. At the beginning of the lesson, I Introduced the number of the week by showing them the hand print spider craft that they did in the previous lesson and asked them how many legs the spider has. Here I encouraged them to count to number 8. After that I encouraged the children to create number 8 with their body by making a circle with their legs and a circle with their hands above their heads. Moreover, they made the number with their fingers by making 2 circles and putting them together. They were very creative in this game because they were making the number 8 in different ways and without any support and they figured out how to do it themselves. They were thinking about different ways of making the number with their bodies. During the focus activity, I provided the Spider Patterning with Pompoms Cards and small pieces of colored printable spiders and I supported the children to complete the spider patterns by looking at the first spider patterns on the card and complete the patterns with the colored printable spiders. Most of them were able to do this activity but 3 of them found that it was difficult to complete the patterns. I asked their friends from their group to work with them and help them. When the children worked together with each other, they could understand how to make patterns because the other students could explain for them how to do it. (Appendix 11).

Chapter 5: Findings and data analysis

Mills (2007, p.122) states that “Data analysis and interpretation are critical stages in the action research process that require the teacher researcher to both know and understand the data.” The qualitative data that I used will support my findings from the research. In this chapter, I present and analyze the data that I collected under 2 themes that I relate to my research questions. The 2 themes that I provide are the benefits of play and creative arts in early childhood and the benefits of using them can support literacy and numeracy development. Moreover, under each of these themes, I provide evidence of data and incorporate literature to support my findings.
4.1. Benefits of using play and creative art in early childhood

This theme provides evidence of the benefits of using play and creative arts for young children which Ms. P, Dr. N and I noticed in my teaching in the KG 2 classroom.
It is important to integrate play into the curriculum for the development of early years’ children because it supports children’s different learning domains. For example, Wood & Attfield (2005) stated that play allows children to integrate a lot of experiences that improve and support their cognitive, physical, social and emotional development. Furthermore, it is significant to support children’s learning through creative arts because it helps students to develop their ability to imagine (Hunt, 2012). This appears to agree with Dr. N because when he observed my class on the numeracy lesson, he mentioned that: You integrate numeracy and artistic activity effectively – I think this is a very effective way to allow the children to work with the number concept and simultaneously enhance a range of skills which they will need as they grow – social skills – independence, self-reliance, decision making, too. (Observation)

I gave the children games that helped them to play and move as well as some creative arts ideas to encourage their imagination. As Ms. P said my teaching was benefiting their learning because of the different things that I used. She helps them to run and move around the classroom as well as use their imagination to create an artwork. Moreover, the children were cooperative together in their groups and they were very interested about their work and games. (Interview)
Ms. P was pleased when I encouraged children’s movements and imaginative by letting them move around and work with each other through play. In addition, using creative arts activities with the focus group of children seems to have encouraged them to be creative and to use their creativity skills. Furthermore, to develop and support the children’s fine motor skills, Liberty (2013) mention some instructions to improve children’s fine motor skills which one of them was to “Get creative. Arts and crafts can also help increase fine motor skills”. Creative arts may support children’s muscles by letting them cut paper, play with clay, draw and write which can support their fine motor skills, as Ms. P mentioned the “focused activity was well thought out and allowed the students to cut and paste and be creative.” (Observation). Furthermore, I mentioned that “in the patterns spider activity, I support the children to develop their fingers muscles by making finger prints patterns where the children have to paint each finger in different color and print them in sequence.” (Reflective journal). Ms. P declared that “Reem supported their fine and gross motor skills and movement throughout playing and creativity.” (Interview).
4.2. Play and creative art can support literacy and numeracy development

Through my teaching practice, I tried to apply play and creative arts in both literacy and numeracy lessons because (Kirsten, Bradley, Smith, & Biurra, 2011) mentioned that “Literacy in the arts is evident when students use and understand symbols, images, movement, sound and artistic conventions. Student literacy can be developed both in and through the arts”. In other words, children’s literacy skills could be improved throughout using arts in their learning by different techniques.
Children’s language might be supported by playing as Mielonen & Paterson (2009) state “When children play and communicate through play, they are learning how language works and gaining an understanding of how to interact with other people.”. This is supported by Isenberg and Jacob who concluded that “young children can develop literacy skills by engaging in play” (as cited in Hall, 1991, p.11). In addition, Ms. P commented “The children were interacting with each other in their groups and they were able to use the English spoken, listening, reading and writing language skills between them” (Interview). I noticed in my teaching the literacy lesson that the children used reading, speaking and listening skills through playing a game. I wrote in my reflective journal: While the children were playing searching for the letter K around the classroom, they were also using different literacy skills such as reading the letter, talking and listening to each other for helping in searching (Reflective journal)
Moreover, Building on Tsao (2008) believe that as children engage in play, they are using their memories to assist and connect their play to pre-literacy skills. This means that play supports the children’s memories to combine with their literacy skills to what they play. I noticed that when I helped the children to play the letter searching game that also has pictures of the letter objects, “they started using the objects names in their daily life and with their friends”. (Reflective journal).
Tsao (2008) also mentioned the important of using arts in numeracy when they stated that “As a result of learning in visual arts, students understand and apply concepts related to space and measurement, such as size, scale, length, distance, volume and time”. (p.518). This means that children can learn and gain different outcomes through using arts.
Young children’s play often involves mathematical concepts, ideas and explorations. (Perry & Dockett, 2008; Seo & Ginsburg, 2004). Children can explore too many things through play such as, patterns, number senses, shapes, sizes, weight and time. Therefore, we can say that “Play is an effective vehicle for fostering Mathematical concepts and developing positive attitudes to mathematics” (n.a, Curricular Guidance, 1997, p. 19). Through exploration, children may get experience in mathematics concepts by play For as Bodrova & Leong (2006) suggest “play provides many opportunities for children to gain experience with taking on roles, playing with unstructured materials…’. Therefore, when I asked the children to search for number 3s, I noticed that “they took on role when I chose 2 children to search and the other help”. (reflective journal).
Chapter 6: Conclusions

To conclude, mentioning back to my research questions which generally focused on learning through play and creative arts in early years, I based my findings on two interrelated themes. The first theme highlights the benefits of play and creative arts in early childhood which support the children’s learning. The second theme shows the benefits of using them can support literacy and numeracy development.
There were some difficulties and weaknesses in doing this action research project. The first weakness was that the project was carried out in only one setting instead of being in different settings to get different information for my data collection and findings, so, it was not generalizable to other contexts such as older children or privet school. The second difficulty was that it was carried out over a short period of time which was only six weeks rather than longer period of time and it was not generalizable such as more than two months. If I would be able to have more time, I might be able to get more data that are valid and valued findings because I will know the children better and I will be able to reflect on their work and my teaching better. However, the teachers, students, materials and the setting that I did my project in were very helpful to support me in different ways.
There are some recommendations for my future practice in teaching and research. The first recommendation for my practice is that in my teaching in the KG class, I used some games that encouraged the children to be active but these games need to be extended or I need to add more games to encourage the children to be active in their learning. The second recommendation is that during the focus activities, I encouraged art activities that supported the children’s creativity and to use their imagination in their work. However, I need to plan activities that are more open ended, so children can have the chance to be more creative because they might need to explore other different materials to use for their art activity. Planning for open ended art activities might give the children a chance to have the final product of their works for them as their own work and not the teacher work because if the teacher keeps giving the instructions about how to do the activity and what kind of material they have to use, the children will not be able to be creative to have their own art work.
In terms of some suggestions for further research, the first suggestion is that in this research, I collected 3 types of data that helped me to know the results of using my topic in teaching young children. Therefore, I might use different types of data collection tools like video recording and children’s works because that they might help me to provide more evidence for the reader.
Another suggestion is that I might choose another topic and research questions next time to recognize which another way of teaching young children is effective. For instance, teaching young children special needs topic because I need to learn how can I deal, interact and teach these children. Moreover, I might choose different ways to assess young children’s learning topic to help me to know the ability and learning levels of my children in my classroom.
In general, I learnt from my teaching practice experience many things. It improves a lot of information to my teaching experiences. The first thing I learned is that the best stage to do a research is the preoperational stage because children learn in different ways and styles and the teacher or researcher can researches of any of the learning styles. The second thing that I learned is to ask less questions and do more conversations with the children and especially through the whole group section. Children get bored when the this section take long time by asking too many questions, so, I need to ask less and opened questions. Moreover, I learned to give more positive comments to the children because it could improve the children’s self-esteem instead of using punishment which could hurt their self-esteem and emotional growth. Furthermore, try to get all of the children’s attention before starting the lesson and make the length of circle time match the children’s attention span – i.e. a maximum of 7 or 8 minutes because Very complaint children may still remain seated longer, but they may not actively participate in learning during a long time being seated. Finally, using different types of assessments is another thing I learned that I need to do because I want to evaluate their learning during the whole term to know their strengths and weaknesses and so I can support their learning. Through assessments, I can identify current knowledge and skills of students, plan for the strengths and needs of students, evaluate students growth over time and evaluate my teaching effectiveness.

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Appendices

Appendix 1 (Action Plan)

Appendix 2 (Interview)

From: P
Sent: Friday, December 07, 2012 4:32 PM
To: Reem Khamis Salem Saeed Slayem Al Shamisi (H00126934)
Subject: RE: interview questions
1- To what extent did I use play and creative art to teach numeracy and literacy? Please, can you give examples?
Reem, used play and creative art extensively in her lessons, her small group activities usually were an art project involving both the literacy and numeracy that was being taught that day, example when we were doing the letter Ii she had the children make ice cream cones and they were to put sprinkles on the cone for the number of the day. This is just one example of her work, every day she came in with creative ideas for both literacy and numeracy which use play ideas such as high and seek or an art project.
2- Do you think using play and creative art to teach numeracy and literacy was effective with this class? why? why not?
This class does very well with creative play and art, I have several very active children which do well with the creative play ideas. They need the movement and mental stimulation that helps them learn from the play. I have more children that are very artistic and thrive on the creative art to bring the learning to them. And Reem supported their fine and gross motor skills and movement throughout playing and creativity. She helps them to run and move around as well as use their imagination. Moreover, the children were interacting with each other in their groups and they were able to use the English spoken, listening, reading and writing language skills between them and they were very interested about their works and games.

3- Do you have any suggestions for how I might improve using play and creative art to teach numeracy and literacy?
One suggestion that I have is to have some of your activities very open ended. Direct the children toward the outcome, however, let them discover the way through the activity. You might find they have a different way of discovery.
Hope these help you, sorry I took so long. We had to have our grades put into the computer by this week and I was working on them.

Appendix 3 (Observations)

Appendix 4 (Reflective Journal)

Appendix 5 (Participant Confidentiality)

Appendix 6 (Parents and Principal confidentiality)

Appendix 7 (The caterpillar patterns activity)

Appendix 8 (The K king craft activity)

Appendix 9 ( Hand print spider activity)

Appendix 10 (Frame patterns and Number 7 designing activities)

Appendix 11 (Spider patterns activity)