PHOTO: AKK SPORTS OY
NESTE RALLY FINLAND 28.–31.7. The Finnish round of the WRC calendar will be run on Central Finland’s sand and gravel roads. Jyväskylä Paviljonki Rally HQ and Service Park are full of action and entertainment during the rally weekend. www.nesteoilrallyfinland.fi
HANNA-KAISA HÄMÄLÄINEN
Maija starts to explore colour with a little help from her mother Susanna Vuohelainen (right) and Leena Pantsu of JAMK.
BABIES EXPLORING THE WORLD OF COLOUR By Pauliina Hietalahti A colour and music playschool developed at JAMK University of Applied Sciencesoffers activities with music and visual arts for families with babies. “The sessions are a rich mixture of singing, music and movement, and we progress to experiencing, touching and observing different materials, colours and light. Finally everyone gets to make their own mark,” says Leena Pantsu, Senior Lecturer in Music Education at JAMK University of Applied Sciences. Experiential Colour Workshops for Babies were first developed around ten years ago at the Pori Centre for Children’s Culture. Pantsu has produced a slightly more refined version of this Finnish innovation. The playschool sessions last 45 minutes. They start with music, songs, rhymes and observation to warm up and get ready for painting. They end with the actual painting, which the babies do with their accompanying adults. Even small babies – from three months onwards – can take part in the
painting. The “paints” are chosen to feel different: there’s warm, slippery beetroot jelly, corn cobs frozen in ice, moist grated carrot that paints a lovely shade of orange, and parsley with its irresistible smell. All the colours are safe, natural products. The babies enjoy experiencing them through taste and their other senses. “The babies are dressed only in their nappies. The colours, materials and sounds form a total, multi-sensory experience for them,” Pantsu explains. Both the adults and babies enjoy spending time together in the sessions. “The babies have different abilities to concentrate. Some are bold and get involved from the very start, while others take their time to think about things,” Pantsu says. New approaches to music education are being actively developed at JAMK University of Applied Sciences’ music playschool studio. Students of early-age music education at the University of Applied Sciences are closely involved in the activities of the colour and music playschool, either through teaching practice or thesis work. n
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