Category Archives: 3.1 Teaching & Learning

Silent Movies and the Importance of Music Choice

For one of the TDTs for the Expressive Arts Modules, we were able to look at how emotions can be expressed through the arts as well as words. We were provided with the brief of created a short silent movie with a horror or thriller theme. We had to come up with a short story line, characters and their roles, record the film and then choose a piece of music to add to the film to enhance the feelings the film is portraying.

This TDT helped me to realise that music education is not just learning to play an instrument – red music, play the instrument, keep a beat, musical terms etc – but also using music in different situations and understand and expressing emotions through music. This TDT also provided a great opportunity for us all to develop our creativity in a way that we have never done before.

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Bringing Mindfulness and Poetry Together

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I smell the rain appearing in the damp air

I see the drear grey clouds with the winter sun peering through

I see red, orange, yellow

Crunch! I can hear my exaggerated footsteps

I feel confused as to how a form of death can be so beautiful, yet often go unnoticed.

This poem was created using a combination of a technique taught to us by Susan Buckman for teaching children how to write poetry, and mindfulness techniques I have been working on.

I was walking home from university today, being aware of my surroundings, my senses and my emotions, and this poem popped in to my head. I found this very interesting as it showed me just how an activity provided by a teacher can sneak into your everyday life, without even thinking about it.

I have never been one for poetry. I can appreciate poems and how poems can provide an array of emotions to a reader, but I’ve never really understood how to write a poem or what can inspire a poem to be written, only the composition of a poem – e.g. a haiku being 3 lines long, with 5 syllables in the first line, 7 in the second and 5 again in the third, and it doesn’t rhyme. Although basic, this idea of how to create an imagery poem really caught my attention, and here I am now, having rushed home to write down my thoughts, and currently sharing it on my blog.

This poem focuses entirely on your senses and emotions. In class, we were encouraged to think about a smell from our childhood, and then what we could see when we think back to that smell, and what we could hear, then what we could feel either at the time of the memory or how we felt as we thought back. I used this idea, and brought it in to the present moment, exactly what I could sense and feel at the current time. This is where I think mindfulness can become a powerful tool in writing poetry.

How did I go from not understanding much about poetry, to rushing home to write down a poem which had just randomly popped in to my head? How can I utilise these thoughts and adapt this in to a lesson of my own?

Mindful walking encourages you to close your mind to the flurry of thoughts rattling around your head, all the stresses of life and worries you may have. It does not encourage you to get rid of them entirely, but it does encourage you to focus your mind on something else, putting all other thoughts to the back of your mind. When practising mindfulness, you begin to notice everything in your environment, from the tiny bit of writing engraved on a pavement, to the slight whisper of wind in your ear. The poem technique fully compliments mindfulness in the sense of observing the area around you and the emotions present, and this is where I think it could be useful with a class.

My thought was that we could introduce the idea of imagery poetry, and use the technique of focusing on your environment and single senses to write our own poetry. Consider the work of William Wordsworth in “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”:

I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o’er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host, of golden daffodils;

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

This was written while he was admiring the Lake District. What can children admire when in your classroom, your playground, a local area or even the lunch hall? We can encourage children in any environment to jot down anything they can sense and feel and turn this in to a simple poem like the one I created, or something more complex, using writing techniques such as similes and metaphors, to create a poem similar to that of Wordsworth.

Of course, the prospects of providing a lesson which allows true senses and emotions will support the learning of poetry writing and provide an understanding of how some poets were inspired to write, but how can the mindful aspect support children in learning?

Mindfulness teaches you how to focus, it is the art of preventing your thoughts from overwhelming you by focusing on the current environment rather than dwelling on the past or future. So, by bringing mindfulness in to the classroom, you are teaching children how to focus their minds on their learning. (Reach Out, 2018).

Mindfulness also has a strong emotional aspect. The Experiences and Outcomes regarding Health and Wellbeing ask that children are aware of their emotions, they can express them and they learn ways that emotions can be managed (Education Scotland, 2006). Mindfulness encourages you to go through an emotional process:

you name the emotion you are feeling.
Accept that you are feeling that emotion, understand that it is normal to feel emotions, but allow the emotion to be there without encouraging it, judging it or resisting it, just let it be there and release itself as it feels natural.
Investigate what the emotion is really making you feel. For example, you are upset, how are you breathing? What can you feel? A tear rolling down your cheek, a tense muscle, a twist in your stomach. Is anything changing (nature, posture, intensity)?
If you engage with any thoughts other than your focuses, notice that you did that, but regain your focus on your breathing. (Vivyan, 2010)

Okay, so the evidence for using mindfulness in the classroom isn’t really there yet (Centre for Educational Neuroscience, No Date), but after practising mindfulness myself, I know that I have a way to escape from my thoughts, I feel more connected with my body and my environment and I feel more in control of my emotions, I feel more calm. My experience is enough for me (alongside many other teachers) to feel as though teaching mindfulness in school is worthwhile, and if I can intertwine it with another subject to provide more meaningful learning, I definitely think it is worthwhile even just giving it a try.

Centre for Educational Neuroscience (No Date). Mindfulness Has a Place in the Classroom. [Blog] Centre for Educational Neuroscience. Available at: http://www.educationalneuroscience.org.uk/resources/neuromyth-or-neurofact/mindfulness-has-a-place-in-the-classroom/ [Accessed 11 Oct. 2018].

Reach Out (2018). Mindfulness in the classroom. [online] Schools.au.reachout.com. Available at: https://schools.au.reachout.com/articles/mindfulness-in-the-classroom [Accessed 11 Oct. 2018].

Education Scotland (2006). Health and Wellbeing. [Online] Available at: https://education.gov.scot/Documents/health-and-wellbeing-eo.pdf. [Accessed 11 Oct 2018]

Vivyan, C. (2010). Mindfulness of Emotions. [online] getselfhelp.co.uk. Available at: https://www.getselfhelp.co.uk/docs/MindfulnessEmotions.pdf. [Accessed 11 Oct. 2018]

Bringing International Games in to the Classroom

Effective Learning and Teaching: What Does it Look Like?

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Everyone can remember certain things from primary school, whether it be a single lesson or a full topic, but why do we remember them? We remember them because they were fun. I don’t remember learning how to subtract one number from another, other than I had a Heinemann workbook to help me. What I do remember is learning about World War 2 in P6.

I remember the World War 2 topic because we got involved, we got to have an election where we created political parties and voted for the party we liked the most based on the policies they created and debated over. We learned songs like Run Rabbit Run and Roll Out the Barrel. The teacher would play a bomb siren noise and we would hide under the table. We got to feel like we were taken back in time to the war.

Thinking back to this topic, I have bits I would love to magpie, bits I would like to make my own, and bits that I would like to add to make the topic even better. This topic is one that has inspired me, and my teaching, and I would love to have this impact on the children I teach when I have my own classes.

Health and Wellbeing Module, What am I Looking for?

Just a Massive List of Circle Games

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Over the summer break, students and teachers alike seem to get very bored, many finding themselves a summer job to get themselves through, and earn that extra cash. This summer I have been working with a great summer camp, teaching children sports and playing games, but there was a time I was asked to play circle games for quite a long session and the other coach said to me “I hope your circle game knowledge is on point”. Guess what I did… I drew a blank and played the basics… Not great.

I’ve never really known if being a super planner who likes to have everything planned out before potentially having to adapt is a great thing or a curse, but that one day made me come home and create a big massive list of circle games and how to play them for myself and all the other coaches to check out. Little did I know that I knew so many… Anyway, I thought I would share them on here for everyone else, so no one else draws a blank and so everyone else can jazz up their circle sessions, P.E. warm-ups or downtime.

Also, if anyone has any more, I would love to add them to my list, so pop them in the comments!

Everyone starts sitting down with 2 legs out straight
Going around the circle, children count saying either one or two numbers at a time
If you have to say the number 21, you lose a leg
If you lose a leg, you can only say one number from that point
If you lose both legs, you need to do a forfeit, then you can re-join the game with both lives

Beat the Ball

A soft ball starts on one individual
The child passes it to the person next to them and then has to run around the circle in the same direction
As the child runs, the ball has to be passes around the circle as quickly as possible
If the ball gets back to the start before the child, the child either:
- Loses a life
- Does a forfeit
- Has to go in “the soup” until someone else doesn’t beat the ball
If the child gets back before the ball, the game continues with the next person in the circle

Duck duck goose

One person chosen to be “it”
This person goes around the circle tapping each child’s head
As they tap heads, they say either duck or goose
If child says “goose”, they both have to run around the circle, the person who was sitting has to try and catch “it”
If caught
- Enter “the soup” until someone else is caught
- Do a forfeit
Goose become “it” regardless of catching prior “it”

Shoe Shuffle (for big groups)

One person chosen to be in the middle and close their eyes
Everyone takes off one of their shoes and puts them somewhere in the middle of the circle and finds a new place to sit
Coach calls for person in the middle to open their eyes
Countdown from 20 (change the number depending on size of group)
Person in the middle has to return the shoes to their owners in the time frame
If they don’t manage, they need to do a forfeit (e.g. smell a shoe)

Giants Keys/Treasure

Requires something jingly
Someone in the middle of the circle – the giant – with the keys behind them
Giant “goes to sleep” – curls up with head facing the floor, eyes closed
Coach picks a child to be the thief
Thief has to pick up the keys and take them back to their space preventing the keys from giving away where they are sitting
Once thief has returned, all children need to sit with their hands behind their back
Everyone shouts “WAKEY WAKEY GIANT”
Giant has 3 guesses to guess who the thief is
Once either the giant has used their three guesses or has guessed correctly, the thief turns into the giant

Button Button

One child covers their eyes in the centre of the circle
Children in the circle have to pass the small object around the circle until the person in the middle shouts “button button, where is my button” or equivalent for the object being used
The person in the middle then uncovers their eyes and has three guesses to guess who has the object
Once all guesses have been used or the person is guessed, they then get to be in the centre of the circle

Buzz – Buzz Fizz

Maths game – Children need to have understanding of counting in 2s, 5s, 10s etc
Children go around the circle counting
If you have to say a number which is a factor of 5, you say “buzz”
To progress, you can use other factors, e.g. every 2 is fizz
- So that would make 10 a buzz-fizz
Use other interesting words for more factors
If someone says a number or forgets one of the words, give them a forfeit

Wink Murder

Someone is chosen to be the detective, they stand against a wall until the coach has chosen a person to be the murderer
Once the murderer has been chosen, everyone calls “detective, dectective, there’s been a murder”
The detective re-joins the group and has to guess who the murderer is
While the dectective is working it out, the murderer must slyly wink at other children
If the murderer winks at you, you must perform a very dramatic death
The detective has 3 guesses to work out who the murderer is
Once guesses are used or they have guessed correctly, the murderer become the dectective

Gorilla’s snot

Can be used with a ball or hands – this example will use a ball
Ball is passed around the circle whilst singing
“Down in the jungle where nobody goes, there’s a great big gorilla picking his nose, he picks it, he flicks it, where does it go? Who’s gonna get that, who’s gonna get that, who’s gonna get that slimey snot”
Once the song is finished, whoever has the ball has to go into the middle of the circle while everyone shouts “monkey in the middle, monkey in the middle” and they do their best monkey impression
- For new groups or shy groups, coaches can do monkey impressions with them, or have multiple balls going around the circle so more people are doing monkey impressions together
To play without a ball, start with everyone touching hands, as the snot is passed, clap the hand of the person next to you, they clap their hands together then clap the hand of the person next to them

ABC List

Coach chooses a subject
Go around the circle with each person choosing a word that fits the subject
Each word must fit alphabetically
g. Food
- A – Apple
- B- Burger
- C – Carrot
If you can’t think of a word in time or your word doesn’t fit the alphabet/subject, do a forfeit (most likely on Q or X)

Hoop Chain

Everyone stands up in the circle and holds hands
The challenge is to pass the hoola-hoop all the way around the circle without breaking the chain (letting go of hands)
This can be made more difficult by sitting down, turning to face outside the circle, closing eyes etc

Time Bomb

Everyone starts with 3 lives
The ball is passes to anyone in the circle (like hot potato)
If someone drops the ball or doesn’t catch the ball, everyone starts counting down from 10
When counting down, everyone has to run away from the person with the ball
The person with the ball has 10 seconds to hit someone else with the ball
If you are hit during the ten seconds, you need to try hit someone
Whoever is the last to be hit in the 10 seconds loses a life
Try finish the game before anyone loses all their lives or find an alternative thing to be done if all lives are lost so that all children can participate at all times (e.g. if you lose all your lives, you have to do a chicken dance, then join in again)

In my suitcase I have…

Sitting in the circle, the first person would say something along the lines of “in my suitcase, I have a swimsuit”
The next person would then repeat what the first person said, then add their own item, e.g. In my suitcase I have a swimsuit and suncream”
This continues around the circle with each child repeating the list of items in the suitcase and adding their own
Keep going until someone slips up or misses one
This is good for everyone’s memory, including the coaches
If someone slips up, choose something silly for them to do, then let them start the next round

Splat

One person in the middle (can be coach)
Everyone stands with their hands pointing like a gun (I like to call it the slimeblaster or jelly shooter)
Person in the middle will point their “slimebalster” at someone and shout splat
Whoever they have splatted must crouch down as quickly as possible to avoid the slime and the people either side of that person must splat eachother
- If person splatted doesn’t sit down, they have been splatted and must become a judge
The slowest person must sit down – they can become judges to consider who splats quickest
Keep doing this until 2 people are left
- Get the two people back-to-back
- Every time you say a word, they must take a step forward
- If you say splat, they must try splat the other person the quickest
- If you splat early, the other person wins
- The quickest person to splat wins
When playing, the child must say the word splat as they splat as that is the only way the slime or jelly can be released

Song Tag

Someone starts in the middle and sings a song
Anyone else can go to the middle at any time to knock the person out, but they need to sing a song that is related to the song being sung
- 1^st song – Old MacDonald – animals
- 2^nd Song – Mary had a little lamb
- 3^rd song baa baa black sheep
Songs can be chart songs or nursery rhymes, whatever the children come up with
The aim is to have the songs relating on, however just let them have fun, it doesn’t matter if they don’t actually relate

Charades

Coach chooses a child to start
Coach tells the group the theme then whispers something relating to that theme in the child’s ear (e.g. sports theme, tennis)
Child acts out the thing whispered to them
The first person to guess right gets to have a turn acting out

Chinese Whispers

One person starts by whispering a sentence to the person next to them
The sentence is passed around the circle until it gets to the person before the person who started the whisper
- Repeating what you said is not allowed
The last person has to say out loud what they think they heard
This becomes funny as children mishear or make up bits of the sentence when they don’t hear properly

Elephant ball

Everyone stands in the circle with their feet touching but their legs open minimum of two ball sizes apart
A ball is put into the circle and children pass the ball to eachother by rolling it with their trunks (hands)
If the ball goes through your legs, you have to go get it, bring it back to the circle and you have to put one arm behind your back, leaving only one arm to hit the ball
If the ball goes through your legs again, you need to turn around and use both arms again but through your legs
If the ball goes through again, lose an arm
Again and you are “out” – but no one is ever out, so find an alternative, something silly or a lap of the circle etc

Fibromyalgia and Me

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Not many people know, but in the past few months, I was diagnosed with a condition called “Fibromyalgia”. The NHS describes fibromyalgia as “a long-term condition that causes pain all over the body”. Although this is the basis of the condition, it does not quite capture all that I need to live with. I thought I would write this post to promote an understanding of a fairly unknown condition, even though everyone with fibromyalgia suffers differently.

I think the most important thing to understand about fibromyalgia is that symptoms vary from day-to-day, sometimes even hourly. There are some things I may be able to do one day that just aren’t physically possible the next.

The worst symptom of the condition certainly is the pain. Fibromyalgia pain is musculoskeletal. This is pain which affects muscles, ligaments, tendons, and bones. This basically means everything can hurt! Some mornings it only feels like a stiff pain, like I’ve slept in a funny position, yet other mornings it can feel like I was lifting hundreds of weights the day before. Yes, I have been prescribed medicines to control the pain, but it never goes away, it just eases ever so slightly.

Pain often feels worse after over-doing myself the day before. This can be especially difficult as a student teacher, I noticed this most whilst I was on placement. Over-doing myself can be as simple as not giving myself a chance to breathe, working myself to the ground without thinking about a proper sleeping pattern and the inability to take even half an hour to myself to relax.

I read a post online about exercise easing fibromyalgia pain. This sounds really silly, most people think exercise causes more pain, but I thought I would try this. I got my gym membership sorted and started going, I managed to fit a minimum of 4 days a week in just going to a class or two. Since starting, I have felt a real difference in the pain I feel and also my energy levels throughout the day. I do still have days where I really am too tired to go and decide just to leave it… I think everyone has those feelings though.

That leads me on to the next symptom which really affects my life. Fatigue. Have you ever woken up in the morning and just thought “Nope, not today. I’m too tired to adult today”? That is me every morning. No matter how much or how little sleep I get, I will always be tired. This is probably one of the hardest symptoms to manage as I literally just want to nap all of the time. Unfortunately, in the teaching profession, napping isn’t an option, not even in the nursery. This means I often rely on caffeine and sugar to get me through the day, even though these aren’t recommended by doctors at all. Doctors recommend a superb sleeping pattern as if getting to sleep at night is easy. It is quite often forgotten that one of the other symptoms is the inability to get to sleep at night. To work with fatigue, I just have to push through, encourage myself throughout the day, avoid caffeine and sugar before bed and consider what I eat during the day. As I previously mentioned, exercise often helps to energise as well.

There are times where fatigue can flare up massively. Others around me often notice when this happens because I can’t even pretend to be wide awake. I get very dizzy when I walk, I start talking really slowly and I find it extremely difficult to keep my eyes open. If you are talking to me and I look as though I am falling asleep or I’m in a world of my own, I promise you, I am not being rude and I am listening (if I’m not I will say after, apologise and ask you to repeat.) I do find this has a massive impact on me socially as I struggle to keep up with others, I just need to sit down.

Fatigue flare-ups come from a condition called “alpha wave sleep disorder” which is basically where the brain decides to send bursts of these alpha waves throughout the night even though they are only supposed to be released during the day. These waves take you out of the deep sleep cycle and can even wake you up fully. This becomes a massive issue because the human body needs deep sleep in order to repair itself for the next day. This will happen on a nightly basis however it is far more noticeable during a fatigue flare up.

Although it is not strong evidence, here is my Fitbit data showing an average week of sleep where the dark blue is restful sleep, light blue is when my sleep is restless and red is when I have woken. I like to use this as an example as I think it shows nicely how awake I really am when I’m asleep.

What was I talking about again? Oh yes, symptoms, like memory.

Research at the University of Michigan found that patients with fibromyalgia have cognitive performance which is the equivalent to that of adults 20 years older than them (Bradley & Matallana, 2009).

This has been found not to affect the speed of cognition, which means that fibromyalgia does not affect the memory in the same way age does. Those with the condition often use the term “fibro-fog”.

Fibro-fog is extremely frustrating. It’s like you’re fighting your way through heavy fog trying to grab a specific thought, you know exactly what you’re looking for but trying to find it is extremely difficult, and when you finally get to it, you put one hand on it, and it slips away from you once again.

As a teacher, this becomes really challenging as I can forget where my sentences are going or I will ask a question but forget the question by the time I get an answer. Sometimes I can be reading or listening, but the words are just words. They go into my head but don’t make any sense, it’s almost as if they don’t connect and they don’t make sense. Sometimes I just can’t sentence. I will be speaking and complete jibberish will come out of my mouth, sentences will be jumbled, somehow creating new portmanteau that no one has ever heard of before. It becomes very frustrating.

So, I guess at this point, you can see this condition is very frustrating. This is only the beginning, I am still in my first 6 months after diagnosis. I know that it is going to take discipline, patience and determination to get through and I have already started my lifestyle change. I can already see such an improvement in myself and I am much happier now than when I didn’t know what was wrong. I have had to learn my physical limitations and I have had to work with a number of specialists to get myself back on track, but I know now that I am definitely on the road to “recovery” in the best way we can put it.

I may not have chosen to have fibromyalgia, but I am grateful for the life changes I have made due to it. I know that with the right combination of medication and lifestyle I will be able to adapt to living with fibromyalgia, I will be at peace with my health and it will not affect my life or my future career. This is only the start of my journey but I am excited to carry on.

I hope this post has given you a deeper understanding of fibromyalgia and its effects…

Image result for fibromyalgia

http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Fibromyalgia/Pages/Introduction.aspx

Bradley, L. and Matallana, L. (2009) The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Fibromyalgia, 2nd Edition. New York: Alpha, p.170.

Update!!

The University of Dundee have been promoting the awareness of Fibromyalgia with the Dundee Comic Space at DJCAD. They have created this fantastic comic to raise awareness and to share the stories of those with Fibromyalgia to help others to understand they are not alone.

Please take a look, it is useful for everyone to see!

Fibromyalgia and Us comic

First Ever Lesson

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So, today I taught my first ever lesson in a school. Although only a group lesson, it was just as nerve wracking. We were learning about maths, in particular calculations using money.

Now, when students hear “get out your maths jotters”, the majority never seem to excited by it. Obviously this is then our job as the teacher to make their maths as exciting as possible.

I didn’t overly enjoy maths at school. At primary school, I wasn’t keen but somehow I was good at it. I took the approach of “the quicker I do it, the sooner I can stop doing it, however this is not often the approach taken by children.

I found that many of the pupils in my group were disengaged before they even sat down. This was very daunting for me, as a brand new student teacher, how on earth was I going to engage these children with this activity.

I managed to catch their interest by using every day objects and pricing them to allow me to encourage each pupil to work out how much my shopping list would total. This went further in depth when I would say “oh actually I’ve changed my mind, I don’t want the soup anymore, I have plenty at home” which encourage the children to then subtract the value and so on.

This all worked very well, but then we had to go on to the textbook exercise. This is where I got to see every single thing that went through each child’s mind as they were working through their equations. I found it very interesting to see some of the mistakes made, and how understandable the mistake were. It allowed me to understand any gaps in their knowledge and showed me where each child needed to improve.

At the end, I had a fair idea of where each child struggled, however I wanted to ensure that they could self-assess their strengths and weaknessed. To do this, I simply asked what they found “easy-peasy” and what they struggled with. This confirmed that they felt the same way.

My teacher has given me the follow-up lesson to do tomorrow where I will be revising multiplying decimals. I feel more comfortable now in taking the lesson, however I am anxious about the fact that this lesson will be assessed.