Art

Today was different from a normal visual arts workshop. In this workshop we listened to everyone in the class tell of their experience of the arts while on placement. This was an interesting way to hear how art can be taught in school and the variety of different ways was quite amazing. However some students had experienced no arts while on placement due to reasons such as time constraints or it was not the day for arts as at the moment we are only in for one set day.

While on placement I have seen an art lesson on designing a Christmas card for a competition. The children were told to draw a Christmas scene of their choice such as a Christmas tress, snow, santa, presents and they were given a variety of materials: pens, pencils, tissue paper, cotton wool, glue etc. The children could decorate and design this however they wanted to letting their creative side flow through.

The discussion on art also gave me an understanding that giving children a template is no way to encourage creativity. It limits the children in what they can achieve. It does not allow for individual expression.

I gained a great deal from the discussion today as I have come away with a few ideas that I could use as ideas for arts’ lessons whilst on placement.

As Harris (2016) recognises  there is a significant place for more integrated arts relating to other curricular areas and topics within the programme of the arts and points out that this is a good way of integrating and linking the arts by making the lessons meaningful. I have seen  this on placement as  interdisciplinary art work relating to bonfire night was done where the children were finishing off fire picture using tissue paper, shiny paper and chalk. They were very effective and amazingly all showed the children’s individual creative side, as Cone (2011, p.89) emphasises that children’s creative side should be allowed to flourish and they should be given every available chance to be ‘creators of their own ideas’ and as a teacher this ‘is one of the most powerful lessons we can teach.’

Music

Today in the music workshop we were learning  to follow rhythms and pulse and we used drum sticks to help. The syllables of the words were the number of beats that we were to tap out for example cir-cle to show this shape would has two half beats relating to a quaver  and square had one beat relating to a crotchet. This was a very interactive, simple and fun way of learning the beats within music. I can see this would be a good starter activity for the children to introduce them to musical notation then leading onto words with more syllables making it more challenging for the children before then introducing them to the proper musical notation of crotchets and quavers etc.

We then moved on to use the glockenspiels and played simple tunes such as ‘Hot Crossed Buns’ and used proper musical notations to do so. We worked on the first 5 notes of the chromatic scale; C,D,E,F,G. I felt quite confident in this as I play the piano and know the notes and rhythms so was able to pick this up straight away. Then we moved on to slightly more difficult pieces that were faster and pitched differently. As Hallam (2010, p.281) states that through music there are many ‘opportunities to be able to co-ordinate rhythmically also seem important for the acquisition of literacy skills.’ Therefore learning to play an instrument also develops a child’s co-ordinationand fine motor skills, there are many other benefits for example phonological  awareness and this was evident today when we had to work out how may syllables were in a word (ibid.).

I would certainly use this type of presentation in my own practice as a teacher. It would take time to build up to reading music notation but over the  several weeks and months  I’m sure the children would manage with encouragement and praise and those who struggled could work on the syllablic words for longer thus showing differentiation. I am sure the children would gain get a sense of pride from being able to play even a simple tune as I did.

References

Cone, T. (2011) Following Their Lead: Supporting Children’s Ideas for Creating Dances. London: Routledge.

Hallam, S (2010) International Journal of Music Education The power of music: Its impact on the intellectual, social and personal development of children and young people [Online] Available http://ijm.sagepub.com/content/28/3/269 [Accessed 14 November 2017] Sage