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As we learn and grow in Room 1, we follow our class charter to ensure we maintain a positive learning environment. Each day we agree on a class target and work as a team to encourage each learner to meet our goal. Should our whole class achieve our target we light up our learning tree. […]

Last week Room 16 worked hard creating van Gogh inspired clay plaques. We looked at ‘Starry Night’ and ‘Wheatfield with Crows’. We first focussed on line and form to draw out our plaques and added texture to the image. We then added colour to bring our pictures to life. Aren’t they just fabulous? Well done […]

Last week Room 16 worked hard creating van Gogh inspired clay plaques. We looked at ‘Starry Night’ and ‘Wheatfield with Crows’. We first focussed on line and form to draw out our plaques and added texture to the image. We then added colour to bring our pictures to life. Aren’t they just fabulous? Well done […]

Literacy

Phonics and Active Spelling

Our sound was “ss”. We used picture writing to illustrate these words. We also wrote each spelling word out 3 times using different colours.

Reading

We used our group text, skimming and scanning skills. We chose 3 letters from the alphabet, looked through our book and wrote down a list of words which began with these 3 letters.

Writing

We used some of this week’s spelling words to write dictated sentences in our Literacy jotters. We also created a Wanted poster using a chosen character from our reading book. We wrote our weekend news in our News jotter.

Talking and Listening

We shared our weekend news by playing a game called Ping Pong. We were only allowed to talk when holding the ball. After throwing the ball (choice of under arm/over arm throw) to our partner, we listened to our peers sharing their weekend news. Playing this game was such great fun!

In preparation for creating our Wanted poster, we worked in trios and discussed what our Wanted poster should include and look like.

Numeracy

Mental Maths

Our focus was Counting. We counted forwards in groups as well as a whole class. We also made a good attempt at completing our Counting Backwards challenge .

We also played some Mental Maths games called Around The World and Beat The Teacher. This was to reinforce and consolidate our counting skills and knowledge of the number which comes before and the number which comes after within 100.

We revised and used the Counting On strategy to complete different Addition calculations. This also included sums with missing numbers in them.

We have consolidated our learning of Addition involving no carrying and have now moved onto Addition with carrying calculations.

We also recapped our knowledge of 2D and 3D shapes. We created beautiful patterns using 2 2D shapes and 2 colours of our own choice each time.

Health and Wellbeing

We watched a video clip to help with our whole class discussion about Road Safety. Using the Stop, Look, Listen and Think message, we planned our competition entry for the upcoming South Lanarkshire Council’s Road Safety Calendar Competition.

Literacy Work Gallery

This week in class we have been working hard to earn tickets to spend at our circus.

The boys and girls have been working together creating  games and activities for our circus afternoon…. we have made juggling balls, patterned paper for our tumble the cans stall and a target box to help us brush up on our addition skills to name a few.

The photos speak for themselves!

 

1. The boys and girls in room 1 have been working super hard this week.
   They have enjoyed developing their numeracy skills and learning to recognise and form their numbers accurately, as well as making some number monsters.

In literacy they are working on writing their names using the correct letter formation.
Today the boys and girls enjoyed being authors and illustrators and created a narrative piece of writing about an adventurous walk.
We also did a little bit of Kung Fu punctuation.
Why not ask your child to teach you some moves!

Today was our last dance and music workshops, our last integrated arts workshops for the year.

In dance, we rehearsed our whole section dance routine in preparation to have our dance filmed that same day. I believe this task went well but everybody in the section seemed to be quite nervous and, almost, embarrassed. Although I have a dance background, I don’t think I have been this nervous for a dance routine, especially one as simple as the one we are performing. With these nerves, I am able to understand how a young pupil might feel having to perform a dance. Performing a dance is part of the Scottish Curriculum, it usually is an enjoyable   subject to teach and learn but some pupils may experience a lot of nerves and as a future teacher, I need to be supportive and understanding of this. After performing and having our dance filmed, we were to evaluate our performance using three starts and a wish to identify things that had went well and anything that could be improved upon. This method of evaluation can be used in other subjects within the curriculum: literacy, drama, and social subjects just to name a few.

In music we focused on learning how to play the ukulele. Firstly, we learned the historic background of then instrument and then we had a chance to learn six chords on the instrument. With these six chords, we played along to a select few songs to get used to playing the ukulele. We then went onto use 4 chords to have the ability to play along to the famous Christmas song, ‘Last Christmas’. I found this experience very enjoyable, as did my peers. Personally, I have never played or even held a ukulele before so this was a new experience for me. Julie explained how ukulele’s are extremely accessible in schools and are fairly cheap if need to be bought. Knowing this information, I might introduce the fun instrument of the ukulele within my class.

Overall, this module has been extremely helpful, insightful and has changed my perspective of how important that expressive arts within the Scottish Curriculum. I believed that the expressive arts and the subjects associated with the expressive arts should be valued as just as important as subjects like numeracy and literacy. As a future educator, I will aim to ensure that  my pupils have a fair and valuable experience of the expressive arts. I will also allow my pupils to explore their creativity as much as I can.

 

This week we discussed creativity within dance. We discussed how important it is to let dance be child-led to embrace to benefits that dance can potentially bring. It was suggested to let a pupil who is experienced in dance, to teach the warm up. This might motivate children that might not participate in dance usually, to participate. We were also told to never discourage an idea a child may have, as this will limit their potential creativity. Dance in schools should be a fun subject and should promote creativity within each pupil involved. We also were introduced to the midway model for dance in schools (Smith-Auturd, 2002) which links professional dance with the creative educational approach. This is something I am sure that my year will continue to look at and make sure to reference during their time teaching dance to their primary classes.

We began to choreograph and create a full section dance routine to Scottish themed music. We were also to add in the group performances we had created to the full section dance to show our own learning.

In the music section we made use of the glockenspiel again and continued to build on our ability to read music. We played most of the notes on the glockenspiel today. I found playing the glockenspiel a lot harder this week than I did last week as I do not really have much musical instrument experience. In this case, practice makes perfect. The more opportunity I have to play the glockenspiel, the better I will get. The same can be said for pupils in a primary school participating in a music lesson. The more opportunities they have to play the instrument, the better they will get.

 

Today, we focused on creative partnerships and working with others to benefits the learning of our pupils. Creative partnerships help to bring the creative arts to be embedded throughout the ‘normal’ school day and enhance learning experiences. We were also introduced to Continuing Professional Development (CPD) courses which are linked with creative partnerships. These courses provide teachers with the opportunities to further their own teaching ability so that they are able provide their class with the best educational experience possible. Attending these workshops increases knowledge and awareness of the value of the expressive arts within schools.

In the music workshop today we got to experience playing ABBA and Christmas songs on the glockenspiel. As a future teacher, I was able to identify the simplicity of this activity and how the pupils would enjoy this music activity. It is easy to teach figure notes, and easy to understand.

In dance today, we, again, had a look at the ten movements. We were to create a piece of choreography using these ten basic movements. This task could easily be completed within a primary school setting and I am confident that they activity would be enjoyable for the pupils involved. We also discussed a range of warm up games that could be used in schools. We also looked at how to link dance with other subjects areas of school, for example, maths. We were to complete a sheet of ten equations which gave us answers of numbers between 1 and 10. Each answer had a movement to match the number. Therefore, this sheet gave us another piece of choreography.

We had our fist dance workshop with Zara today, it was a very practical lesson. In the music workshop today we were joined by Primary 7 pupils from a local primary who taught us how to play their string instruments.

In our dance workshop we discussed that role that dance has in primary schools and the important part of the curriculum that it really is. Dance in primary schools has a focus on improving the pupils physical fitness whilst also wanting the children to create and preform: “through dance, learners have rich opportunities to be creative and experience inspiration and enjoyment” (Education Scotland, 2019). We also discussed how dance can be incorporated into other topic areas. For example, if Scottish highland themed music is used, this could lead to a class topic of the history of Scotland and can allow the children to learn more about the Scottish heritage. Furthermore, we went on to discuss the 10 key components of movement in dance: balance, gesture, hop, jump, kick, reach, roll, slide, turn and twist. We then got into groups and created a sequence which included all ten of these movements.

In the music workshop, I experienced the chance to play a violin along with a primary 7 pupil. All the primary 7 pupils that came along were involved with an East Ayrshire program which includes 18 other primary schools. The program provides children with the chance to learn how to play an instrument from primary 4 until the end of primary 7. This gives the children a chance to learn an instrument, they simply might of not had a chance to learn how to play an instrument without this program. Not only does this opportunity provide the children with knowledge of music and playing a musical instrument but can provide the children with major mental and physical health benefits (Mandel, 2007). I feel that this opportunity also built the child’s confidence up as they were teaching an adult how to play an instrument. I observed how the pupil I was working alongside with really just seemed to be having fun.

 

Mandel S.E., Hanser S.B., Secic M., Davis, B.A. (2007) Effects of Music Therapy on Health-Related Outcomes in Cardiac Rehabilitation: A Randomized Controlled Trial. Journal of Music Therapy. [Abstract, Online] Vol.44(3), pp.176-197. Available: https://academic.oup.com/jmt/article-abstract/44/3/176/954996 [Accessed: 4 December 2019].

Education Scotland (2019) Curriculum for Excellence: expressive arts, experiences and outcomes [Online] Available: https://education.gov.scot/Documents/expressive-arts-eo.pdf [Accessed 4 December 2019]