So okay, I haven't blogged in a while, but life has just been crazy busy, it literally feels like there aren't enough hours in a day to get to everything that I need to do... so, let me just get straight to it...

The value of music for the holistic development of foundation phase learners:

1. Would you please describe your confidence in your current knowledge and skills to teach music through movement in the Foundation Phase as you start your LSKM 221 journey? In your answer, please also refer to your confidence to integrate music into your teaching practice currently.

I feel confident in my current level of knowledge and skills to teach music through movement in the Foundation Phase, because I understand all the points given under study unit 1 of this subject, I can now honestly say that I would be able to interpret all the points of the unit, such as the learning theories (Erikson's stages of psychosocial development as well as Piaget's cognitive development theory, which includes the pre-operational stage and concrete operational stage, as well as Vygotsky and the zone of proximal development), musical development in the foundation phase, music and the holistic development of foundation phase learners (physical development, cognitive development, social development, personal development and emotional development).

To integrate music into my current teaching practice, I now feel is possible, I learnt so much about what ages children do best in, like between the ages of 2 and 6, children are best at play, drawing, imitation, images and speech. This makes me more confident as to when the learners will be best at learning movement related to music and makes it easier for me to do my best as a teacher and make sure the learners get the best out of every lesson.

2. When thinking about facilitating holistic development in the Foundation Phase, we need to consider, for example, cognitive development, personal development, social development, emotional development and physical development. We also need to consider literacy and numeracy skills, language  acquisition, creativity, problem solving and midline crossing.

Both music and physical education play important roles in the holistic development of the young learner. However, if you have to choose between incorporating Music education OR Physical education in the Foundation Phase curriculum to meet the holistic development needs of learners, which would you choose? In your answer, please explain which would be the best choice to ensure the opportunity for the holistic development of the learner and motivate your answer.

If I had to choose between music education and physical education in the Foundation Phase, I would have to admit that I'd choose physical education. Not only can you incorporate music into physical education, through dance and even playing a musical instrument will promote physical education. Therefore, physical education will help learners develop more along the way, then what music education would, everything linked to physical education such as fine and gross motor skills, as well as hand-eye coordination and midline crossing, are very much needed attributes to have, in all children and people's lives and future's. 

I do however feel that music education is also important and can never be cut out of a learner's curriculum completely, even if they just get access to it then in the case of using it as a means to teach physical education (or any other form of education type), as long as they still get exposed to it in general.