Dance

“Schools recognise the potential for dance as a tool for fitness, creativity and social skills, and as a vehicle to interpret other subjects like maths (through rhythm and choreography), geography, religious studies and literacy”(More dancing, 2016).

This week’s dance class was a continuation from last session. We re-called our routines from last week using the 10 basic steps before adding another section. This week, our lecturer incorporated a theme to the session. Due to the fact that it is October, we had a Halloween themed class. We got given out, in our groups, a Halloween themed image like bats or skeletons and created a move from this stimulus. We then, as a whole class, joined each of our Halloween moves together before then performing our smaller group routines one-by-one. This enabled us to have a class performance which was easy to construct and very enjoyable.

I feel that I would definitely use this in a school setting as it enables the children to be innovative, expressive and create a piece as a whole class that they can be proud of.  Adding in themes from around the curriculum enables children to learn in different ways and creates a variety of stimulus’ to put their knowledge into practice. Curriculum for excellence outcomes covering the concept of dance include:

Early Level:

I have the opportunity and freedom to choose and explore ways that I can move rhythmically, expressively and playfully.

EXA 0-08a

First Level:

I am becoming aware of different features of dance and can practise and perform steps, formations and short dance.

EXA 1-10a

(Experiences and outcomes – expressive arts – learning and teaching, no date)

I feel that bringing these outcomes into our curriculum and widening a child’s learning experience by integrating the arts creates different learning platforms in order to get learning right for every single child (Government et al., 2016).

Art

“Arts integration goes beyond including art projects in class; it is a teaching strategy that seamlessly merges arts standards with core curricula to build connections and provide engaging context”(Nobori, 2012).

Today’s art session was another practical, enjoyable and informative class. The main thing that I took from today was that each child’s work should be original. I believe that it is okay to take inspiration of theme or technique from an artist’s work, however I don’t think that creating a copy of an artist’s work is beneficial to a child as they are not being original and exploring their own ideas.

Today, we began with only the primary colours and white and a home-made paintbrush. These ‘brushes’ were made from sticks and wool and any other available materials. This would be, in itself, a fun project in the classroom, possibly outdoors also.

With our painting tools and our paint, we listened to the lecturer describe a painting that he had in front of him. We explored the various shades that we could create with the primary colours given which is a learning process for a child to understand that mixing the colours makes different colours. Various textures and lines were made with our painting tools and this meant that, along with everyone’s individual imaginations, each painting was very different.

It was strongly encouraged in the class that we painted wherever we felt comfortable and we picked whichever colour of paper we felt was best. I will definitely bring this into the classroom as I feel that it is important to allow the children to have freedom in the choices they make for their own pieces.

This kind of activity could be integrated into any kind of topic and this will require a number of different skills to be used by both the teacher and the pupils to develop and produce a final outcome (Riley, 2012).

 

Experiences and outcomes – expressive arts – learning and teaching (no date) Available at: http://www.educationscotland.gov.uk/learningandteaching/curriculumareas/expressivearts/eandos/index.asp (Accessed: 17 October 2016).

Government, S., House, S.A., Road, R. and ceu, 0131 556 8400 (2016) Getting it right for every child (GIRFEC). Available at: http://www.gov.scot/Topics/People/Young-People/gettingitright (Accessed: 17 October 2016).

More dancing (2016) Available at: http://www.artsprofessional.co.uk/magazine/267/article/more-dancing (Accessed: 17 October 2016).

Nobori, M. (2012) How the arts unlock the door to learning. Available at: http://www.edutopia.org/stw-arts-integration-reform-overview (Accessed: 19 October 2016).

Riley, S. (2012) Use arts integration to enhance common core. Available at: http://www.edutopia.org/blog/core-practices-arts-integration-susan-riley (Accessed: 20 October 2016).