Dance is another form of expressive arts which should be used in the classroom. Over the next few weeks we will be exploring dance and lesson plans that we could use in the future. It is important that we feel confident facilitating dance in schools so that we deliver better lessons that children will enjoy. We will only gain this confidence by learning and taking part in our dance workshops. You should always do a cardio warm up and stretch before starting the dance lesson, so the children do not hurt themselves. We should make the children aware of why they are doing this and what muscles they are using. In class we drew a figure and labelled where the muscles, bones and anatomy of the body were.
You could do this with children to see what they know and then help them fill in the rest, they could keep these and revisit it each week. The theme of our dance workshops is Scotland, so these activities could be used on St Andrews Day. We played a series of warm up games related to Scotland, for example, Highland Tig, if you were ‘tug’ you had to highland dance until someone set you free. Thus, making a normal game of ‘tig’ a little more exciting and incorporating dance. We also played a game where a number represented something related to Scotland, e.g. a castle, the river, the Loch Ness Monster. The number also represented the number of people you could use to make these things. This encourages children to communicate, work together and be creative as they can use nothing but their bodies. “Dance teaches another avenue of expression and communication in addition to writing, speaking, the visual arts, music and theater (literacy in all these areas is important to provide options for increasing the quality of interaction with others). (Cone and Cone, 2005, p.9) There are ten basic dance skills which children must learn when doing dance.
They will use these dance skills to create, perform and appreciate a piece of dance, which we will also practice over the next few weeks. Dance also “provides opportunities for children to share in the experience of creating and learning together.” (Cone and Cone, 2005, p.9) You can make dance cross-curricular by integrating literacy or maths games which could make these subjects more enjoyable for some children and build their confidence.
In music we were visited by some primary school pupils who taught us how to play some string instruments. The children enjoyed this as it allowed them to feel empowered and confident as they were able to teach someone who is older than them, and we are putting ourselves in the position of a learner, which was eye opening as we were able to remind ourselves how hard it can it can be. It has been said that music improves your health and well-being as it builds confidence, gives a sense of achievement and allows a bit of escapism from the usual school routine. “It can help energise our mood and provide an outlet for us to take control of our feelings.” (https://www.livingwell.org.au/well-being/mental-health/how-music-can-support-our-well-being/) The Strings Project has been introduced to schools in Ayrshire to give children the opportunity to engage with music as it is such an important part of the curriculum. It teaches them discipline and respect and builds their self-esteem and most said they would like to carry it on into high school. Visiting the university and taking part in today’s activities inspired many of the children to want to go to university or become teachers in the future. We should not underestimate how much can be done with music; playing classical music can help calm the children while doing their work, addition of music notes could be used for maths, it could be used in P.E. to develop a sense of rhythm and you could use some musical words such as crescendo, diminuendo etc. to practice and learn about syllables in literacy. It is surprising how many ways music can be used when you think about it and I will always strive to bring it in to my classroom too. Teachers are not always confident in teaching music because they do not have much experience, however, it is not about them performing to the pupils; it is about children learning. Even if the teacher does not know how to play every instrument, they can still learn to teach it and ensure the children are learning. (Mills, 2009) I have always enjoyed music and did it in school myself so this may give me more of an advantage because I may be more confident teaching it.
References
Cone, T.P. and Cone, S.L. (2005) Teaching Children Dance Human Kinetics Publishers.
Living Well (n.d.) How Music can support your well-being [online] Available: https://www.livingwell.org.au/well-being/mental-health/how-music-can-support-our-well-being/ [Accessed on: 18th December 2019].
Mills, J. (2009) Music in the Primary School Oxford: University Press.
