Category Archives: Drama

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

November 8, 2016 User deactivated Leave a comment

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

November 1, 2016 User deactivated Leave a comment

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

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

October 18, 2016 User deactivated Leave a comment

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

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

October 5, 2016 User deactivated Leave a comment

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

Education Scotland (2009) Expressive arts: Experiences and outcomes. Available at: http://www.educationscotland.gov.uk/Images/expressive_arts_experiences_outcomes_tcm4-539863.pdf (Accessed: 4 October 2016).

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.

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