Category Archives: 3.1 Teaching & Learning

Dance is serious?

Leave a reply

Whenever I have taken part in dance, I have never taken it seriously. For example when doing a badge with the Brownies that involved dancing and I was asked to run the dance, with which I have no experience dancing, I just made it as funny as I could. This was because I was nervous but I also thought that along with the children I’m probably not the only one outside my comfort zone.

When we did it at school, we had those professionals that went to dance club three times a week, which made the rest of us feel like there wasn’t any point in trying. I remember when making a dance at secondary school with my peers to the song Candy man. It was interesting at how different dances were, some students went all out and you could tell they were dancers but then there was the rest of the class who felt embarrassed. This embarrassment led to us just not taking it seriously and adding in comical moves and genuinely just messing around.

However since the dance workshop I realise that you can make a dance serious, whether you are a first timer or a confident dancer. I think this should be emphasised to the children as not everyone is good at everything but you should always try. I also realised that if you move differently that is classed as dancing and different turns is also. It makes what I felt was embarrassing actually a joyful experience.

Here I have planned a lesson for Dance:

 

CfE outcomes:Inspired by stimuli, express thoughts and feelings through dance. EXA 2-09A

Explore and chose movements to develop my skills and techniques. EXA 2-08a
Learning Intentions:Create dance depending on the mood they are given.

Talk with others and decide on best movements to make the feeling be conveyed.
Success Criteria:Work in groups to discuss what makes a movement look like an emotion.

What movements would they use to convey an emotion.

Find movements that to them symbolise certain feelings.

Creative movements that can the children can explain why it displays that emotion.

 
Assessment Opportunities:The child discussing why their movement conveys a certain emotion.

Using the feeling given and thinking how they might look and feel.

Discussing and challenging others to what they may pick to look like when doing a certain movement.
Learning activities:Game of stations- Have feelings in each corner and when the children go to that corner they should do a movement to them that symbolises that feeling. Each time they go to the same corner they should do different movement.

Put the children into groups and put the groups in the different corners. In these corners put paper and pens and then ask them to write down what they think these movements would look like. Once they have done one get them to move round in their groups.

The children should then go in a corner with their group and make up a short dance piece or some movements which they use to show this. They can move around to different corners when completed.

To finish put different types of music on and depending on how they feel with the music they make a freeze for that music.

Science SMART target

Leave a reply

My SMART target for science is as follows:

S- Research a scientist that is likely to be on TV that the children will watch.

M-Know what science they are interested in and what they have found out and link this to a lesson. Possibly write a lesson plan for this topic.

A-Watch videos and read up on the scientist and experiments they carry out.

R- Link to the Curriculum for Excellence E&O’s. Also see if it is linked to anything in the news or outside community.

T-Before I go on placement.

One scientist that is on children’s TV programmes is Steve Backshall. Steve is interested in the world and what creatures and living things are out there. This means you could focus the lesson on unusual animals, that you don’t see in this country. To prepare for this lesson I would make sure I have watched some of his programmes such as Deadly 60 as then you can begin to explain what this sort of scientist does. Also mini clips of these shows may be worth watching in the lesson to get the children excited and enthused about the topic. This topic would be sorted into the biodiversity and interdependence organiser. I think that if we looked at where these unusual animals live we could think about why they live the. This would link to the SCN 2-01a and SCN 3-01a depending on the detail you went into, considering the children’s stage.

Although they may not be considered a scientist you could possibly use Neil Armstrong. Although, he was an aerospace engineer and therefore you could consider with your class what they would need to develop a good spacecraft. They could then have other curriculum subjects come into this such as art and design and technologies as they could design and make the spacecraft. When designing these however the children will need to know what is different between space and here on earth in order to make these.

Overall I feel if we used a scientist the children were familiar with or had heard of to begin a topic, then they may be more enthusiastic as they know that people actually use science in real life and that they can find out about things just like these scientists.