Last week, we discussed the art we had witnessed on placement. In truth most people had not seen any arts practiced within class and those who had noted that it was extremely limited. Perhaps this is due to the fact that we are only on placement on a Thursday but I find it no coincidence that everyone had a similar experience. The arts are virtually fading.

With regards to my own experience on placement I have witnessed three different art lessons. However, these art lessons were related to the class topic or remembrance day. I also noted that the children were given resources which could’ve possibly limited their creativity. It is our job as future teachers to bring back the arts and allow children to reach their full potential.

With regards to music, Bloomfield and Childs (2002) explain that tuned percussion instruments can be useful in the classroom to demonstrate the connections between the music and the action. It should also be noted that their can be some barriers in implementing the arts within the classroom. In my placement school, they had no physical resources for music such as instruments or even a specific room (as the school is open plan) and therefore this makes teaching music difficult.

In the music input we were learning to play and read music. To make it easy we used shapes to represent notes (e.g. a square being a crochet and a circle being a quaver) and used drumsticks to play beats on the floor. Following a few practices to backing tracks, we then were then given either a glockenspiel or a xylophone to practice with. I found this workshop difficult as I have no prior experience in reading music. However, I think this is a great way to introduce reading music to children in a fun and engaging way. This is a good lesson in introducing music at first level and can be progressed in the upper school. “I can use my voice, musical instruments and music technology to discover and enjoy playing with sound, rhythm, pitch and dynamics.” EXA 1-17a

References

Bloomfield, A & Childs. J. (2002) Teaching Integrated Arts in the Primary School. London: David Fulton Publishers.

Scottish Government. (2004) Curriculum for Excellence. [Online] Available: https://www.education.gov.scot/Documents/expressive-arts-eo.pdf [Accessed: 14 December 2017

Two weeks ago in integrated arts, we were visited by primary 6 pupils for Greenmill Primary School to teach us how to play a string instrument. We were all paired or grouped with a pupil and my group were learning to play the viola. First we were taught how to hold the instrument and the bow. After a few practices, we were taught the notes and the chords and played a few tunes independently then as a class. I think this was an interesting input and the pupils seemed to enjoy being the teachers for a change. Page (1995) stated that “all children should have ample opportunity to express themselves through music” and it is clear that through this programme all pupils have had the chance to learn, participate, work as a group and perform.

Following this we had a drama input in the afternoon. In groups, we were to prepare a micro-teaching presentation and present back to the class. Each group had a different approach and used varying conventions. Two groups based their lesson on a book and one group chose to create their own story. I enjoyed this input as we were learning for each other and all the activities were engaging. My group will present in the next input.

The Gruffalo – Drama PP

References

Page, N. (1995) Music as a Way of Knowing. Portland Maine: Stenhouse Publishers

Yesterday in integrated arts we were focusing on music and drama. We attended our morning music workshop where we were concentrating on voice. The voice is important in any profession as we use it to communicate but it as a teacher it is our most important teaching tool as we also use it to direct, focus and encourage pupils and to explain, discipline, and manage the classroom (General Teaching Council, 2007). Therefore, it is important we warm up our voice to avoid strain or losing our voice altogether. The first part of the workshop involved this; warming up our voices using small exercises. After this we were looking at Choonbaboon and Charanga which both have vast resources to assist teachers who don’t feel confident teaching music. For the second part of the workshop we were using instruments. In groups we created a grid with 25 squares to create our own tune and we used instruments to demonstrate sounds associated with the theme Haunted House, for example: using a tambourine as chains. I feel much more confident with teaching music which is a subject I have never been good at. I definitely use the resources on Choonbaboon and Charanga.

The second workshop was drama. Continuing on from the last drama input, we were introduced to four more drama conventions: flash forward, flashback, narration and slow motion. Using Teacher in Role, Andrew set us the scene of an old house which no one would buy due to an ‘incident’ sometime prior which fit in well with the them ‘Halloween’. In groups we acted out a scene where we were entering the house and planning to stay the night. The scene had to include a portion which was slow motion. We also acted out a flashback and a flash forward scene which included a narration. This was interesting as although we had all been given the same scenario and information; each group did something different. this would be a good lesson to use with children as it allows them to enhance their creative skills, use their imagination to explore new possibilities and make the lesson more meaningful (Education Scotland, 2013).

References

Education Scotland (2013) Creativity Across learning 3-18 [Online] Available: https://education.gov.scot/improvement/Documents/Creativity/CRE1_WhatAreCreativitySkills/Creativity3to18.pdf [Accessed: 4 November 2017]

General Teaching Council (2007)  [Online] Available: https://www.gtcs.org.uk/ [Accessed: 1 November 2017]