“Creating art is a fine way for children to make choices and solve problems. Every step involves making a decision: what color to use, how to make a line, what size to make something. With every choice the object becomes more and more their own” (Staff, 2011).
I enjoyed reading this article as it is from the point of view of a teacher, and why they found creativity vital to the classroom learning.
Staff, P.T. (2011) The importance of the creative arts for children and teens. Available at: https://childdevelopmentinfo.com/learning/multiple_intelligences/the-importance-of-the-creative-arts-for-children-and-teens/#.WGe7CoXXLug (Accessed: 31 December 2016).
“In primary schools, one in every three girls was participating in extra-curricular music, compared with one in every seven boys. In secondary schools, only 6% of students with disabilities or special educational needs were involved in additional instrumental or vocal tuition, compared to 14% of students without these needs” (Ofsted, 2012).
This week in music we were back in the Mac lab. We were exploring the programme “Charanga” (Charanga, 2016). Charanga is an interactive and informative website resource that benefits both the teacher and the pupil. There are endless numbers of activities and worksheets that can help the children develop their music skills and knowledge.
There are pages that suit every level of the primary school which is extremely beneficial for progression, and a huge variety of song style that could be suited to topics and other curricular areas. We looked at Mamma Mia sheet music, sang the song as a class, then explored the various activities individually.
The reason why I liked this programme so much was that it provided assistance and lesson plans for the teacher. This is particularly helpful for me as I have a limited knowledge of music, so some assistance and inspiration is extremely useful.
For me, I feel like I learned a lot from this programme and that technology plays such an important role in the classroom in the present day and offers endless learning opportunities.
Art
“So the relationship between the two volumes is a balance between the educational need for continuity… and the recognition that these children may still be working at a level more appropriate to younger children, particularly if they have not been introduced to this way of thinking about art before” (Start magazine – teaching art in primary schools, no date).
Today’s art workshop was heavily inspired by the famous tenements painting by the Glaswegian artist Avril Paton. Her painting called “Windows in the West” shows the intimate lives of those living in tenement housing across from her flat in Glasgow.
(Glasgow Museums, 2011)
The stimulus for the workshop was to take inspiration from the painting and photographs of tenement houses. We then, using polystyrene, designed our own outline of a tenement building before using the template to print on paper.
We rolled coloured ink onto coloured paper of our choice, before printing and lifting the design leaving a mono-print picture.
I thoroughly enjoyed this workshop and also learned about the history of Glasgow, the artist Avril Paton and using the media for printing. I feel that this is a simple, fairly quick activity that could be integrated with various other curricular areas.
Ofsted (2012) Music in schools: Wider still, and wider. Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/music-in-schools (Accessed: 16 December 2016).
Start magazine – teaching art in primary schools (no date) Available at: http://www.arteducation.co.uk/art_books.html (Accessed: 16 December 2016).
Glasgow Museums (2011) Avril Paton on ‘windows in the west’ at Kelvingrove Art Gallery and museum, Glasgow. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVDRL6wsQYU (Accessed: 17 December 2016).
Charanga (2016) Primary music curriculum, secondary & instrumental music. Available at: http://charanga.com/site/ (Accessed: 21 December 2016).
I thoroughly enjoyed this book by Charles Fowler and felt that it highlighted the strong importance for expressive arts in the curriculum.
Fowler, C. (1996) Strong arts, strong schools: The promising potential and shortsighted .. Available at: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=bVv-_x-f3dIC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false (Accessed: 21 December 2016).
“The most effective schools recognised that regular, sustained experiences were essential to secure good musical progress. Schools where curriculum provision was weaker showed limited understanding about musical progression or did not give enough time for music” (Ofsted, 2012).
This week, we had our music lesson in the computer lab exploring the programme ‘Garageband’ on the Apple Macs (Inc, 2016). This programme is equipped with ‘a complete sound library that includes software instruments, presets for guitar and voice, and virtual session drummers’ (Inc, 2016). This, I feel, allows the children to be innovative and expressive through technology, but learning new musical skills at the same time. We tried and tested the various instruments and technologies before creating our own 32-count tunes.
This is a video from a school exploring Garageband and I think that when everyone puts their sections together to create a final piece it gives them something to be proud of.
Drama
“adopt a variety of drama skills to win the attention and interest of our students, to convey information effectively to our diverse and demanding ‘audience’” (Schoolzone, 2015).
Today’s main task in the drama session was micro-teaching. We did this micro-teaching in groups with the stimulus of a children’s book. The book that we chose was ‘Beside Myself’ which was about twins that swap identities. We felt that this was a good choice of book as there are two strong characters and a strong story-line that many themes can be taken from.
Our micro teaching consisted of partner and class activities. The partner work was for the pair to act as their partners and mimic their mannerisms, speech and aspects that make them individual. This made participants consider all aspects of their partner’s personality and traits. This activity would work with all stages of the primary school, however, it is probably most effective with upper-primary school as they are more observant and aware of people.
The second activity was a thought tunnel with the whole group. The purpose of the thought tunnel was to consider how they would feel if their identity was swapped for another. We got a variation of good describing words and thoughts in this activity and I feel that this activity could also be done with a wide scope of age groups.
After our micro-teaching, we took part in other groups’ activities which varied from a Harry Potter stimulus, to The Gruffalo, and the activities ranged from freeze-frames to monologues. It was interesting from both a learner’s point of view and as a student teacher to take part in all of the drama activities.
Inc, A. (2016) GarageBand for Mac.Incredible music. In the key of easy. Available at: http://www.apple.com/uk/mac/garageband/ (Accessed: 17 November 2016).
Ofsted (2012) Music in schools: Wider still, and wider. Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/music-in-schools (Accessed: 22 November 2016).
Schoolzone (2015) Schoolzone: Using drama skills in the classroom. Available at: http://www.schoolzone.co.uk/resources/articles/GoodPractice/classroom/Drama_skills.asp (Accessed: 17 November 2016).
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