Dance

This week continued from our last dance session. We began by practicing last week’s routine in our groups that we created from the 10 basic steps. The lecturer gave the session the theme of Halloween and in our groups, we were given a printed picture of a Halloween object, such as a witch’s cauldron, and then created a move from this.

My group decided that a suitable dance move to represent a cauldron would be, to stand with feet apart and slightly bent over as if to look inside and, with two hands clasped, make a stirring motion. I am sure children could come up with very imaginative dance ideas.

Later, we showed the rest of the class our dance move we had come up with to represent the stimulus.

We then performed everyone’s moves that they had created, before completing our groups routine in front of everyone. It is important that teachers are able to stand back and allow for children to come up with their own, original dance routine so that they can fully compose, preform and appreciate the dancing experience (Smith- Autard, 2002).

Children would love this activity as it had an enjoyable theme and then get to not only decide on their own dance skills but teach them to the rest of the class and watch everyone do something that they created, giving a sense of pride and achievement. Offering children the opportunity to discover how they can be creators of their own ideas is one of the most powerful lessons we can teach. (Cone, 2011)

 

Art

Today in art we began with a discussion on if we believe it is wrong for children to simply copy a picture during art lessons. I hadn’t considered before how this limits children creativity but now realise that this stops children from using their own ideas.

For the practical work, we focussed on the importance of everyone being able to create as the pleas, to allow for individuality. We were given the primary colours and white paint and a homemade paint brush that had been created with sticks and wool. The lecturer had a painting and never let us see it but, instead, described it and we could then use our imaginations to paint the picture.

Through mixing colours together, my painting ended up having a green sea, light blue sky with white fluffy clouds and orange boats.

 

This activity would be relatively simple to complete in the class and it makes the experience fun and not just copying what someone else has done successfully. This also helps to eliminate children from comparing their work to others within the class to see whose picture looks most like the artists and cause children to lack confidence in their creative ability. According to Eisner, E. W (2002) using your imagination is a crucial part in cognitive development.

References

Cone, Purcell, T. (2009). Following Their Lead Supporting Children’s Ideas for creating Dances. London: Routledge.

Eisner, E. W (2002) The Arts and the Creation of Mind. London: Yale University Press.

Smith-Autard, J.M. (2002) The Arts of Dance in Education. 2^nd ed. London: A.& C. Black.