Here are some important terms and concepts you might find useful as you use this site. If you have a suggestion on other words you would like to find in this glossary, or if you have an example you would like to add to what we already have here, please let us know in the comments section and we will amend this list!
–PLEASE NOTE: this list is still under development, not all terms have been defined as of 6.24.21
Audience
Arts Integration
The Kennedy Center’s Definition for Arts Integration
“Arts Integration is an approach to teaching in which students construct and demonstrate understanding through an art form. Students engage in a creative process which connects an art for and another subject area and meets evolving objectives in both.”
Blocking
CLASS
The Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS) helps you to observe and measure teacher-child interactions that support child development. For this project, we use the CLASS rubric to show how teachers and visiting artists can share the same interaction moves that support a teacher’s instructional goals.
You can learn more about the CLASS and how it is used with Head Start on the National Head Start site.
Cue
A cue is a signal that indicates when to start or stop performing. Some examples include a sound effect, a change in lighting, a line of dialogue, a song, or another actor’s action.
Elements of Theater
Ensemble
Expressive language
The language you say out loud. A child demonstrates skills in expressive language when using words to interact with others. For this project, we focus on expressive language when we ask children to explain or describe their thoughts, feelings, ideas, or senses.
Feedback Loop
Adults can encourage children to talk by providing feedback, or follow up questions, that loops a child into conversation. Responding to a child’s comment with Who, What, Where, Why, or How questions cue a child to provide more information, and require persistence by the adult.
Typical Exchange:
- Child: My house is big!
- Adult: Wow, it is big!
Longer exchange:
- Child: My house is big!
- Adult: ooh, who lives in your house?
- Child: me and my mom
Strong feedback loop:
- Child: My house is big!
- Adult: oooh, who lives in your house?
- Child: me and my mom.
- Adult: How many rooms in your house?
- Child: 10
Focus
Gesture
Imagine
Improvisation
Interaction
Neutral
Open-Ended Questions
Pantomime
Pretend
Projection
Receptive language
Relational Concepts
Relational concepts are words used to describe qualities of people or objects, spatial relationships, time, and quantity. Children who learn to understand and eventually use relational concepts are better prepared to comply with directions, understand the content of instructional materials, engage in activities in and out of the classroom, and communicate effectively with others. Teaching children concrete nouns (chair, rug) is fairly straightforward, you can point to an object, or hold it in your hand. Relational concepts (behind, under, first, next) are more of a challenge.
…relational concepts shift from one situation to another. A child must be able to apply the same concept across contexts or generalize it to fully understand it (French and Nelson, 1985) which is the basis of difficulty for many children and is a challenge for teachers and therapists .
Boehm (2001) Boehm Test of Basic Concepts, Third Edition
Physically modeling and practicing relational concepts in routines like Freeze or Solo provides helpful scaffolding to teach these essential abstract concepts.
We have a handy list of relational concepts on our vocabulary page for your reference.