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

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.

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].

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

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