Music
During the music workshop, we looked at different types of notation. Looking at shapes, Figurenotes and graphic scores. This workshop has increased my knowledge of notation and confidence in teaching this area. Given the different types of notation, I feel I could modify them to meet different children’s needs.
I found the Figurenotes section very interesting as I thought it was a simple concept that would allow for more children to get into music. I feel that this would be a much easier way to get children started in music. I believe that as Figurenotes has three stages – Match, Rhythm, Process – with varying difficulty meaning it could be tailored to suit different children’s needs and provided a challenge to the child. In order to further develop my knowledge and skills, I have had a look at https://drakemusicscotland.org/resources/ to see what different resources they have and to look at the training videos.
I am now interested in looking into this area for piano resources as this is an instrument that I have always wanted to learn how to play. Julie raised an interesting point that children would need a basic understanding of basic fractions such as halves and quarters in order to explain a quaver and semiquaver. This is something I had not thought of and demonstrates how linked the curriculum is. Here are the Rhythm Grid and Graphic Score Grid that my team completed.
Puppets and Drama
At the start of the workshop, we were asked what age would we use puppets? I answered saying from primary 1 – 3. I believed that puppets would only engage young children and that older children would not be interested or engaged with puppets. I am glad to say I was proved wrong. After today’s input, I can see how puppets can be a great teaching tool across the curriculum.
Last week we were asked how confident we would feel using drama and I answered not very confident. After reviewing the drama lectures and workshops I can now say going into placement this year I feel confident in my ability to use drama as a teaching method, in particular, the decision alley, teacher in role and puppets. These tools can be used across the curriculum, we saw how puppets can be used to teach chemistry, decision alley can be used to discuss and debate important issues such as climate change or bullying and teacher in role can be used in maths with the teacher playing the role of a cashier or in history playing the role of a time traveller. Overall I view of drama and its value in the curriculum has changed completely and I now value drama highly. In order to develop my knowledge and experience in this area, I feel I must use these when out on placement and reflect on how well the lesson went and what I can do to improve the lesson for next time. As well as this I plan on reading Sharon Peck and Aubre Virkler’s (2006)‘Reading in the shadows: Extending literacy skills through shadow-puppet theatre’.
An important concept that I have taken away from today’s workshop is process not product. As a teacher, I would have been focused on the end result e.g. finished artwork, complete story. The workshop has shown that the process is where children are creative and that we can spot creativity during the process. I feel Vygotsky sums it up well by saying
A skill I developed today was my communication skills. My communication skills were put to the test by creating both Graphic score and Rhythm grids with my team where we had to discuss as a team what notes we felt were right for the music we wanted to make. My communication skills were also developed when creating the story with puppets. We all listened to each other’s ideas, questioned and challenged each other to think deeply about their character.
Finally after seeing how the puppets were used it reminded me of Britain’s Got Talent group who used shadow when dancing to tell stories. I think it would be great to experiment with this with children as it incorporates drama, dance and music all into the one area.
Link for the dance group – https://youtu.be/a4Fv98jttYA
References
Vygotsky, L. (2004) ‘Imagination and Creativity in Childhood’, Journal of Russian and East European Psychology, 42(1), pp. 7–97. Available at: https://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1927/imagination.pdf (Accessed 27 October 2020)
Peck, S, M., Virkler, J. (2006) ‘In the shadows: Extending literacy skills through shadow-puppet theater’, The Reading Teacher 59(8), pp. 786–795. Available at: http://kateboucher.weebly.com/uploads/2/4/7/9/24791042/reading_in_the_shadows.pdf (Accessed 27 October 2020)
