Today, in our music workshop we experienced a planned music lesson aimed for early/first level and a second level lesson using drumsticks and beaters. We used our beaters to play along to different rhythms within pieces of music. This was an extremely enjoyable tasks although I experienced some challenges picking up the rhythm as I am not very musical. It was clear that this type of lesson could be used over several weeks to achieve a lot of learning as there is also background learning to be looked at. This background learning includes learning the notes and what each note represents: crochet = 1 beat, minim = 2 beats and quaver represents half of a beat. I would use lessons like these within a class as I felt they were easy to follow and were very successful for beginners like myself. The progression and the steps that could be made in weeks following were clear. These lessons could happen over the course of several weeks or even a whole term.
In art, we focused on how literacy can be linked in with expressive arts and other curricular areas. We focused on the style of Bob and Roberta Smith and created our own prints inspired by his work.
This would be an extremely useful and successful lesson to teach about current artists and also to integrate art with literacy as it would enhance knowledge in both subjects (Marshall, 2014). The art of printing was also explored in this activity and this would show pupils how things may have be done before technological advances were made in society. It was easy to imagine how you could complete this task within a school and even make it easier for the younger ones by making the brief easier by explaining more in detail or by completely the steps one by one with the class.
Marshall, J. (2014) Transdisciplinarity and Art Integration: Toward a NewUnderstanding of Art-Based Learning across the Curriculum, Studies in Art Education. London: Routledge. [Online] Available at: https://moodle.uws.ac.uk/pluginfile.php/36842/mod_resource/content/1/Transdisciplinarity%20And%20Art%20Integration%20highlighted.pdf [Accessed: 17 November 2019].
