22/11/16 | Week 10 | Music and Art

November 22, 2016 User deactivated Leave a comment

Music

Today we looked into non-traditional music in the form of beat boxing. Tom Thum is an incredible beat boxer and I really enjoyed listening to him. To bring this kind of music to the classroom I think would be a big hit, in particular with the boys, and would be interesting to see the learners take on it and progression with it.

This just shows that music does not need to come from your normal school instruments, that music can be made with only your hands, mouth and throat.

Art

We were given a visual picture in this session and were asked to consider it in many different ways.

The purpose of this task was to get us to really look at the picture and take some time to focus on everything that was happening in it. To think about what it made us feel and if it gave us any inspiration.

One of the nice things about this task is it opens itself to so many different answers and possibilities, which is one of the ten principles of the Arts.

‘The Arts teach children that problems can have more than one solution and that questions can have more than one answer’

(Eisner, 2002)

References

Eisner. E (2002) The Arts and the Creation of Mind, in Chapter 4, What the Arts Teach. London:Yale University Press.

15/11/16 | Week 9| Music and Art

November 15, 2016 User deactivated Leave a comment

Music

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This week in music we were introduced to Charanga.

This is an online tool created to help teachers with music lessons. It provides as much and as little support as the teacher needs and can do so many things. Lyrics, beats, melodies, games and more.

Seeing this kind of tool being introduced into the primary school makes me feel at ease towards teaching music as I have very little music knowledge and so having a tool like this readily available to assist would be extremely helpful.

‘Primary schools play an important role in fostering pupils’ interest in music’

(HM Government, 2011)

This is why tools like these are so important, as it gives the teachers the confidence they need to incorporate more music into young learners lives.

Art

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This weeks art session had us printing cards. We were given a painting to look at and watched a short clip relating to the painting, to give us some insight and really appreciate the small details. We had to choose a section we liked and create it on a piece of Styrofoam. This was then painted and printed onto coloured card.

I thought this activity was really interesting and different and would definitely keep a class of children entertained.

We focused a lot on the original picture we were to take inspiration from and this really helped put us in the mood and focus on all of the small bits of detail.

‘By their nature, the arts engage students in learning through observing, listening, and moving’ (Silverstein and Layne, 2010) and this activity would give the learners the opportunity to observe and listen to the description of the original painting and then recreate what they have taken from it.

References

HM Government (2011) The importance of music A national plan for music education [Online]. Available: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/180973/DFE-00086-2011.pdf [Accessed 21 Nov 2016].

Silverstein, L. and Layne, S. (2010) Defining Arts Integratio

08/11/16 | Week 8 | Music and Drama

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Music

We were in the Mac Lab for this weeks music workshop exploring and trying out the tool ‘Garageband’. This is a tool that allows you to create any kind of music with different beats and melodies from a range of different musical instruments.

This kind of tool allows the children to be really expressive as they can create whatever kind of music they want to and be as creative as they want.

I thought this tool was a really modern and easy way for children to get the opportunity to play around with musical instruments their school may not be able to afford. The only thing I thought that could potentially make this tool less useful is the fact you can only use it on mac computers. Many schools do not have access to mac computers and so cannot access this amazing tool.

I have the freedom to use my voice, musical instruments and music technology to discover and enjoy playing with sound and rhythm. EXA 0-17a

I can use my voice, musical instruments and music technology to discover and enjoy playing with sound, rhythm, pitch and dynamics. EXA 1-17a

I can use my voice, musical instruments and music technology to experiment with sounds, pitch, melody, rhythm, timbre and dynamics. EXA 2-17a

(Education Scotland, 2009)

These outcomes would fit the use of garageband really well and gives the learners opportunities to play about with the different sounds and patterns.

This kind of tool makes the integration of music lessons in schools so much easier and gives children the opportunity to engage with music as it is such a beneficial area to take part in on so many different levels, from literacy and numeracy to social skills (Hallam, 2010).

Drama
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This week in drama was our micro teaching week. In groups we had to choose a book and present it to the rest of our section as if it were a lesson. Two drama techniques had to be incorporated and had to get the whole section involved and participating, as you would a drama lesson.

We chose the book Beside Myself by Ann Morgan.

The book is about two twin sisters who swap places when they were young to trick their parent, but when it’s time to switch back, one twin doesn’t want to.

The first drama activity we done was getting everybody into pairs and getting them to pretend to be the other person and talk about themselves as though they were each other. This would put the children inside the heads of the twins and they would experience what it would be like to pretend to be someone else.

The second was a thought tunnel of the twin who wanted to swap back but in the end, whose identity was stolen. We got the section to consider how that twin felt being stuck in her sisters body and not being able to get back.

This was such a valuable exercise as it put us straight into the teaching of drama and I really enjoyed doing the activities and introducing the book to the class.

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References

Education Scotland (2009) Expressive arts: Experiences and outcomes [Online]. Available: https://www.education.gov.scot/Documents/expressive-arts-eo.pdf [Accessed 7 Jan 2017].

Hallam, S. (2010) The power of music: Its impact on the intellectual, social and personal development of children and young people. International Journal of Music Education. pp.270–289.

1/11/16 | Week 7 | Music and Drama

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The music session today was very constructive as we moved on with learning how to teach music to primary children. We had a visit from a primary 6/7 class, who played a piece of music to us and then taught each of us how to play some basic chords on their instruments.

We were one to one with a pupil each and they taught us what they had been learning in class about playing their instruments. Having a child talk us through it and explain what they knew was insightful into how they learn and how much they are grasping. It was interesting to have them teaching us as it brings us back down to their level and helped me to really see how to put things in order for them to understand. As music is not taught by specialist music teachers in all schools, having an experience like this was valuable as one day I will need to teach music to my class. It is also thought by Mills (2009) that children will benefit more from having their class teacher teach them music as they are aware of how the children are doing in other curricular ares and will be the ones the will notice a difference in performance in other areas after teaching them music. ‘Pupils and children make day-to-day links between work in music and other curriculum areas’ (Mills, 2009, pp.3) and so having the class teacher there through it all would benefit the children in many ways.

Reflecting on this workshop I feel that it was such an educational session as we got to see the teaching of music from the perspective of a learner. We were being taught how to hold and play an instrument by the very same aged children we one day might be teaching music to and it gave me a really good idea of how to go about it. Taking into account the language they used and how they explained it will be very helpful.

Drama

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In this weeks drama session we read through a book called ‘The Tunnel’ and from this we practised more of the drama techniques we had been looking at.

This is the perfect book to bring into a primary classroom as it had so many opportunities for different techniques and told a really good story. Role on the wall was the technique we focused on which involves drawing a picture of a character within the story and on the inside writing how they might be feeling in the situation and on the outside writing what others might be thinking about that person in the situation. It really gets children thinking and considering the feelings of the character.

The idea was to draw the picture and write the words at the beginning of the story, then return and reflect at the end of the story and see how our minds had changed.

I thought this was a really good exercise and is one that I hope to use when out on placements or when teaching.

References

Mills, J. (2009) Music in the Primary School. 3rd edn. Oxford: Oxford University Press

25/10/16 |Week 6 | Music and Dance

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In this weeks music lesson we focused on pulse and rhythm. For someone who knows very little about music and reading sheet music, these were two words that initially went straight over my head. However they were not that difficult concepts to grasp and by the end of the session I found that I could fully understand these and also implement them in a class piece.

These are the fears of many teachers, that they cannot play an instrument or they can’t read the notation, but this does not matter. According to Janet Mills (2009), teaching children who are so young how to read this notation can ‘damage their musical development’ (Mills, 2009, p.92) and actually have a negative affect on them if they choose to continue music throughout primary and into secondary. They often forget how to play without it and this can get in the way on any creative music they have to produce. This is interesting because in our input, our lecturer asked who played an instrument and if they felt comfortable with playing without sheet music, and almost all of them said no.

Pulse – the steady heartbeat that carries on through music and does not change throughout

Rhythm – Short and long sounds that can be changed within a piece of music

We began by looking at the note time values. Each note is held for a number of beats and there are many simple ways to teach this to children. For example, in this input we started by looking at quavers and crotchets which we simplified to circle and square. Cir-cle square. Circle relates to quaver as it has two syllables and so two beats per note and square to crotchet. Giving the children, in lines of four to represent bars, circles and squares on the board and encouraging them to tap along with drum sticks or beaters, all following the same pulse is a great and easy way to start their learning. This is what we done and I grasped it fairly quickly.

We then substituted the circles and squares for the notes and done the same thing. Once grasping this we began to make it harder and I was surprised to find that I coped with it and was able to keep up with few faults. Although this kind of progression would be over weeks or months with children, it was interesting to see how easy it actually was to teach very simple music having no musical background.

We then moved onto the instruments themselves. Using xylophones, and only using certain notes (CDEGA), we were asked to create a 32 beat piece. This kind of activity was set out as these notes tend to always sound good together no matter what order or pattern they are played in. This is a very handy thing to know for teaching primary music, as you are still allowing their creativity as they can choose the order of the notes, but you as the teacher are directing them to have a good outcome.

Then as a class we all played our 32 beats with the piano. This is a really good lesson idea for children once they have learned the concept of note value, as it is easy and allows them to be the creative ones. It also keeps music fun as they are creating it themselves.

For this session we done, I think it would be appropriate to do with any level in primary school and so would be appropriate in any of these outcomes

I have the freedom to use my voice, musical instruments and music technology to discover and enjoy playing with sound and rhythm. EXA 0-17a

I can use my voice, musical instruments and music technology to discover and enjoy playing with sound, rhythm, pitch and dynamics. EXA 1-17a

I can use my voice, musical instruments and music technology to experiment with sounds, pitch, melody, rhythm, timbre and dynamics. EXA 2-17a

I think that these music sessions we have are extremely valuable for me as someone who has not done music since second year of high school because not only is it refreshing my memory of what I learned, it is being taught to us in such a different way. A way in which when we teach back to the children, I hope that they have a better experience of music than I did.

Dance

This was our last dance session in the Integrated Arts module and it brought everything to an effective conclusion. We filmed our finished dance as a whole section and watched it back.

This was highly constructive for us, and would be for the children, as we were able to see what we looked like when we were dancing. Having that opportunity to watch back what you are doing is a great way to improve and make the dance moves look better. Giving them the opportunity to self assess and peer assess is a positive way for them to improve. The easiest way to achieve this was through three stars and a wish and by looking at a list of elements required while watching the dance.

Cone (2009) discusses the importance of letting the children lead the learning and allowing their thoughts and dance moves to be incorporated. This is the best way for children to learn as they will be proud of what they have achieved. During our dance sessions this is how we learned and because of that I feel like I have taken a lot away from it and will be a lot more confident in schools when it comes to teaching dance.

It gives them the opportunity to evaluate their, and their peers, dancing and get constructive criticism back from peers.

References

Cone, T. P. (2009) Following Their Lead Supporting Children’s Ideas for Creating Dances. Journal of Dance Education. Vol.9 (3), pp.81–89.

Mills, J. (2009) Music in the Primary School. 3rd edn. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

18/10/16 | Week 5 | Art and Drama

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Art

Today’s art session began with a lecture with a guest speaker from South Lanarkshire Council looking at teaching the primary art and design curriculum in schools at all levels. We had a look at some examples of primary children’s artwork and some of the different techniques that can be used. For example, oil paintings, line drawings and water colour paintings. This was extremely helpful, as I was never confident in art, and it has given me some good ideas and opened my mind to all the different possibilities and paths art can take you. Looking into how to make art inter-disciplinary by linking the class topic into many different art lessons was interesting and is a good way to keep the children engaged in what they are doing.

Children, as they move up through the primary, begin to feel like they are under some kind of pressure to make their pieces of art ‘perfect’ and become self conscious as their work is getting judged by their peers looking over (McAuliffe, 2007). In this circumstance, as well as a time saver, giving the children a pen as their only option to draw is very beneficial. It not only gives the children more confidence as they do not get the opportunity to rub out and be perfectionists, it also saves time as a child with a rubber will spend all day rubbing and get now where with the drawing.

The input that followed this was interesting as we were looking into many different techniques to use. We started off with a line drawing of a washing line. The idea of this was to draw the whole picture without lifting up the pen from the paper. This posed as quite a challenge but nonetheless I was intrigued as to whether or not I could do this. Although it was difficult (and the pen may have been lifted a few times), it was a fun and different way of drawing.

For children, this would be a great challenge and one they would dive straight into. It again, steers away from the drawing being ‘perfect’, as sometimes to get to the next part you need to draw back over lines which can make it a bit messy.

‘Inspired by a range of stimuli, I can express and communicate my ideas, thoughts and feelings through activities within art and design.

EXA 0-05a / EXA 1-05a / EXA 2-05a’

(LTS, 2009)

This is an example of an experience and outcome within CfE which would relate to this lesson, however towards the upper primary rather than the lower primary.

Drama

In this Drama session we looked at the different drama conventions that we can apply in lessons to enhance the learners experience.

Previous to this module, my knowledge of drama was very minimal as I never took the subject past second year of High School. As I was a quiet person in school, drama was never my thing and I worried about teaching it to children. However, going over all of these conventions in the previous session and in this one has really began to put my mind at ease.

We discussed each of the conventions above and were given an example of what we could do for each and gave us the opportunity to try them out with each other. This was extremely helpful as sometimes it is difficult to imagine what you have to do without doing it and gives us a student teachers an idea of what we will be asking of the children.

The thought tunnel I felt was particularly effective as it had us talking about what we were feeling as certain characters and is a good way to link drama to other issues.

References

LTS (2009) Expressive arts: Experiences and outcomes. Available at: http://www.educationscotland.gov.uk/Images/expressive_arts_experiences_outcomes_tcm4-539863.pdf (Accessed: 18 October 2016).

McAuliffe, D (2007) Foundation and primary settings: In Teaching Art and Design3-11. ed. Sure cox, Robert Watts, Judy Grahame, Steve Herne and Diarmuid McAuliffe. London: Continuum

11/10/16 | Week 4 | Art and Dance

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ART

In today’s art session we took a non traditional approach to painting. This was very interesting and encouraged us to move away from making our work perfect and precise, to making it our own.

By creating paintbrushes out of many different materials, what is created can give great effects when painting with on paper. It takes you beyond an average paintbrush and allows for so much more creativity. Before we began using these brushes, I was a bit apprehensive in that I didn’t want my painting to turn out looking bad, which I expected it would given the brush I was using. However while using it I felt like what I was creating was so much better, and the finished product I was very surprised with.

This has opened my eyes to trying this with children. Not only would it make the lesson more interesting and a bit different, it takes some pressure off of children to make their art look like what it should and make it look how they want.

Also by limiting their paint to primary colours and white encourages them to make their own colours and create colours and shades of colours.

We were read a description of a painting by somebody looking at a picture, however we could not see this picture. This was a great way to let us be creative and paint what we could see in our heads instead of copying a picture and everybody’s looking the same.

‘I have the freedom to discover and choose ways to create images and objects using a variety of materials.

EXA 0-02a’

(Education Scotland, 2009)

I feel this activity would be appropriate for this outcome given that the children made their own brushes from whatever materials they could find.

DANCE

In this dance session we really progressed with our dances. All of the groups performed their own, which we brought together, added a beginning dance and end dance with the whole class and each group done their own bit in the middle. This was extremely effective and gave us a finished piece.

This kind of progression of activities would be ideal for doing with children as although in the end it becomes a class piece where everyone is involved, each one of the groups own ideas and moves come through when they get to do their group dance (Cone, 2009). I think it’s so important for children’s creativity to be recognised and it not be completely choreographed by the class teacher as it takes the element of fun and of the children feeling proud away from it. It also gives the teacher less work!

References

Cone, T. P. (2009) Following Their Lead Supporting Children’s Ideas for Creating Dances. Journal of Dance Education. Vol.9 (3), pp.81–89.

Education Scotland (2009) Expressive arts: Experiences and outcomes. Available at: http://www.educationscotland.gov.uk/Images/expressive_arts_experiences_outcomes_tcm4-539863.pdf (Accessed: 18 October 2016).

4/10/16 | Week 3 | Dance and Drama

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DANCE

This was our second dance input and was a continuation of the previous week.

We began as usual with a warm up, starting with cardio. Doing this with children it is best to start with a game that gets them running around, which we done a few of. This is important as it will raise the body temperature and the heart rate before starting any activities. Next we moved onto the stretches which different people led with their own ideas for stretches.

Building on our dance from the previous week, we added some new steps and also a beginning and an end. This has only taken us two weeks to develop, however when doing it with children it would take more sessions due to lack of time in the school day. We also looked into ways to make our dance inter-disciplinary, and maths was the one that we focused on. By giving each dance move a number and providing a sheet of maths equations each with answers relating to the number of dance moves, we created a new sequence.

‘I enjoy creating short dance sequences, using travel, turn, jump, gesture, pause and fall, within safe practice.’

EXA 1-08a

This outcome from first level in the CfE fits with this lesson perfectly as it is a dance sequence made up of simple skills that the children have created themselves.

This kind of progression and all of the ideas within the dance should come from the child. Although we are giving them a framework by giving them the ten skills, they themselves are making up the ten moves and ordering them in their own ways. Also by adding on a beginning pose and an end pose, the dances will all become unique with each groups ideas coming through. By doing this, we get an insight into the children and we begin to see how they learn and what they are feeling through their expression of dance. By actively listening to them trough their dances we get a better understanding of what works for them and what does not (Cone, 2009).

DRAMA

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In our first session of drama session we spoke generally about drama within the classroom and how important it is to incorporate it into a child’s education.

We were asked to do a lot of reflection on our past drama experiences within school. I found this helpful to think about as I cannot remember drama at all from primary School, so I hope when I am out teaching, I can make drama a memorable experience for children as it is supposed to be a release and a bit of fun.

I was apprehensive when we began the Integrated Arts module in general, but in particular I was nervous about drama. I hope that continuing through the module and learning about the different techniques will give me confidence as I would like to incorporate drama into my school week when teaching.

We were given a story about a dragon who had no friends because everyone was scared of him. With this we were introduce to our first drama techniques but we were also realising that this kind of story within a drama context is a really good way to bring in bigger issues.

Bullying, leaving people out, not giving people a chance

These are all problems happening out in playgrounds today and can be addressed and hopefully eradicated through a drama like this.

drama can provide a process for learning by living through or experiencing an event

(Smith and Herring, 1993)

References

Smith, J. L. and Herring, J. D. (1993) Using Drama in the Classeoom. Reading Horizons. Vol.33 (5), pp.418–426

Theresa Purcell Cone (2009) Following Their Lead: Supporting Children’s Ideas for Creating Dances, Journal of Dance Education, 9:3, 81-89.

27/09/16 | Week 2 | Dance and Art

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DANCE

During our first dance session we were introduced to many different things that should be incorporated into a dance session with children. Warm up games, stretches and the ten key skills to dancing were what we focused on, each having significant importance to the session.

The warm up

We then moved on to look at teaching children the dancing. Before walking into this session I felt okay about teaching dance. I have been dancing since I was young, however I was unsure how I would bring this to the classroom and what to do with the children. We focused on ten key skills, all of which by themselves are extremely simple, and is all you need to create a dance with children.

In this session, we had to make up one move for each skill and were given a sequence of numbers to follow, which turned it into a routine. By doing this, you are giving the children the opportunity to be creative and create a routine that has come from them. ‘Through dance they bring their inner self to the surface where they can express their dreams, fears, needs and joys’ (Cone, 2009), giving them the opportunity be who they are and hopefully gain some confidence from the experience.

ART

In today’s art input we looked further into how the integrated arts are becoming relevant in children’s education and methods on how to go about teaching it, which I find very helpful. Arts education is so important as it ‘is an approach to teaching in which students construct and demonstrate understanding through an art form’ (Silverstein and Layne, 2010, p.1). It not only allows them to fully understand what they are learning and go beyond the basic understanding, but it gives children the opportunity to become creative and express themselves as they do it (Silverstein and Layne, 2010).

The point of this exercise was to encourage us, and in turn the children, to slow down and really look at what we have in front of us before we move on and create something new. It encourages us to appreciate our work and feel proud of it, but most importantly to have a tolerance for ambiguity.

References

Cone, T.P. (2009) ‘Following Their Lead Supporting Children’s Ideas for Creating Dances’, Journal of Dance Education, 9(3).

Eisner, E. (2002) What the Arts Teach. Ch 4. The Arts and the Creation of Mind, London: Yale University Press.

Silverstein, L. and Layne, S. (2010) Defining Arts Integration.

20/09/16 | Week 1 | Art and Music

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ART

In our first Arts input we were introduced to the benefits of art in the classroom and how children actually begin their development in writing with a form of art. Children do not have the experience to be able to form letters when they are young, therefore, the begin with scribbles and drawings. This is described by Lowenfield and Brittain as the scribbling stage, the pre-schematic stage, the schematic stage and finally the gang stage (McAuliffe, 2007).

This was interesting as I have never been enthusiastic towards art during my school career, but I now understand how important it is for children in beginning to form letters. It is also important that children get the opportunity to express themselves through art during their time in primary school as it has been shown to have positive effect on other areas of the curriculum for them (Smith, 2009).

During this input we had the opportunity to look at artwork from children at all stages of the primary. Seeing this was helpful in many ways as we not only got to experience the progression from early level up to second level, but we had the chance to consider the resources provided for each piece. Resources are a huge part in the making of artwork and this is entirely down to the teacher.

What I have taken from this input is that no art is too messy when it lets the children be creative. There is always a way around mess and resources. Allowing children the opportunity to create something with appropriate resources allows children to really open up and have a tolerance for ambiguity.

A picture from the oldest age group

Music

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‘Music has a power of forming the character and should therefore be introduced into the education of the young’ – Aristotle

In this session we got an introduction into music within education. We discussed how music can have an effect on our moods and also how it is a fun way to remember facts, for example the alphabet. Learning music can really benefit children and has shown to have links with performance in other curricular areas.

We looked into how certain types of music can convey different moods and make you feel different things. There was a particular piece of music we listened to which was a piano piece by disney, and from listening to this we were to create our own story that fit with the music.

Doing this kind of activity with children would really allow them to us their imagination and be creative. Not only do they get the opportunity to engage with the music, they can go about it in a way that is their own. I feel that this is beneficial way to begin teaching young children music, especially in early and first level, as they can really connect with the music and imagine in their heads what kinds of different moods different music can have.

Not only is music itself a subject that children will be taught and have the opportunity to engage with, but using music cross curricular can be a really effective way of learning.

I feel that throughout these music sessions I will become more confident in teaching music to children, as for me, music was not one of my favourite subjects in school I hope that I can become more knowledgeable on the subject and hopefully one day make it a fun experience for children in schools.

References

McAuliffe, D(2007) Foundation and Primary Settings. In Teaching Art and Design 3-11. (Edited by Sue Cox, Robert Watts, Judy Grahame, Steve Herne and Diarmuid McAuliffe) London: Continuum

Smith, F. (2009) Why arts education is crucial, and who’s doing it best [Online]. Arts Integration. Available: https://www.edutopia.org/arts-music-curriculum-child-development [Accessed 30 Dec 2016].

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