In this morning’s lecture, we focused on the learning environment in which visual arts are carried out in. We also discussed how the working environment can lead to the success of young learner’s artwork. We examined Room 13 in depth during the lecture. This is in a particular school in which an empty classroom was transformed into an arts studio. This allowed children to become more creative and have a different working environment for the arts which allows for increased engagement. The arts studio minimises the need for a space available in the classroom to carry out the expressive arts. The class teacher must still have a tolerance for mess however, it can be decreased as the art studio allows children to express themselves freely in a space dedicated to the arts.
During the dance workshop, we started off by playing several warm-up games including “follow the leader”. The cohort walked around the room individually and one person led the first part of the warm-up. The leader would dance around the room in a specific way and the rest of the cohort would copy their actions. This continued until everyone in the cohort had the chance to become the leader. This warm-up game allows for an element of creativity as the individual named as the leader can make up their own action entirely to suit them and make it unique to them. Following on from this, we were introduced to the ten actions of dance: balance, gesture, twist, turn, jump, hop, kick, reach, roll and slide. These ten actions are incorporated in all areas of creative dance and are the first thing that should be taught to learners. We were put into groups and each group created a short dance routine solely made up of these ten dance actions. This activity allowed each group to create their own dance routine which was unique to them and each group had to be creative in order to create their own dance routine. An experience and outcome that relates to this activity is as follows:
“I enjoy creating short dance sequences, using travel, turn, jump, gesture, pause and fall, within safe practice.” EXA 1-08a (Scottish Government, 2018).
In today’s visual arts workshop, we started off by looking into the work of Bob and Roberta Smith. Following on from this, we created artwork inspired by his work. Myself and my group decided to come together to create one piece of artwork which included the statement “Art – breath of life, food for soul.” To create this piece of artwork, we each created our own pieces by using A4 paper and drawing our particular word. We then stenciled this using polystyrene. We then painted over the stencil using paint and we joined our artwork together to create our final piece.
To conclude, I found today’s activities to be highly beneficial. I will take these experiences into my teaching practice to use with young learners.
References
Education Scotland (2018) Experiences and Outcomes Available from: https://education.gov.scot/Documents/expressive-arts-eo.pdf [Accessed: 30 October 2018].
