This week the cohort were focussing on dance and music.

During the lecture today, we were discussing creative partnerships within schools. Creative partnerships can have a great impact in integrating the arts into the classroom and education (Creative Culture Education, n.d.). This is something I had never thought about before. For instance, I knew that schools could ask a dance expert to come in and work with the children, but I never knew it was optional for teachers. Creative partnerships within education are important for the development of not only pupil’s creativity but for teacher’s too. I have also learned that creative partnerships within education can lead to enhancing pupil’s experience across all curricular areas as the arts can be incorporated into any area of the curriculum. This gives children the opportunity to explore different areas that they may not normally enjoy and can also promote positive learning within areas of the curriculum which children might find challenging. For example, using dance in maths or literacy as a different or additional way of learning about a book or topic instead of the normal method of writing or watching videos. This creative learning could be delivered by the class teacher but also through creative partnerships such as a dance/drama instructor, parents, specialists in areas such as STEM and health and wellbeing, as well as many more.

Dance – Workshop 1

Today in the workshop, we were focussing on recording and analysing the dance that we, as a class and as individual groups had created over the previous weeks. I found this week very fun but also quite stressful in the lead up to immediately before recording the dance. On analysing our dance, I feel that there could have been more team co-operation and partnership between the group. I think that there were too many views on what we should be doing in the dance as well as moments of tension due to disagreement. Due to this, I think that this affected our dance overall because we were slightly confused about what moves we were doing. We could have been more of a team. This could have been solved by having the group follow just one person who could have kept the timing of the dance. We could all have contributed our views one at a time but decided as a group what moves to implement into the dance instead of arguing over what moves to use.

Moving on, when performing the dance, I think that I as an individual did quite well. I think that I had good musicality and rhythm. I was good at following the dance and getting the moves right and in sequence. However, I feel that I could have improved on timing during the dance as I was out of time with the rest of the group a few times. Aside to this, I feel that I could have memorised the dance better as I was mainly following the people in front of me during the performance. I also think that I could have used facial features to my advantage a lot more throughout the performance as I didn’t really smile much or show that I was enjoying myself. Finally, I could have improved upon showing enthusiasm when performing. I was enjoying myself, so I feel that this was due to feeling nervous as we were being recorded and because I was trying to make sure I was getting all the moves right.
We were also asked to analyse a peer’s performance in the dance. The person I analysed had great enthusiasm during the dance and had great use of facial features. They were also very good at implementing the moves and had great musicality and rhythm but did have difficulty and could improve upon timing during the dance. They were following other people in the group and so hadn’t memorised the dance but with more practice this could be achieved easily. The group as a whole in which the person was working in had a great dance and implemented all of the ten steps of dance which was very creative and aesthetically pleasing to watch.

Performing the dance is something that I really enjoyed but I also found it rather challenging. Referring back to the Tallis Pedagogical Wheel (Thomas Tallis School, 2013), I found that I was persistent throughout the workshop as well as collaborative and co-operative with my peers.

Here is the link to the video of the cohort’s dance.

https://vimeo.com/244831329

I loved the final workshop because it was fun and gave great insight into improving dance within primary schools which is easy for teachers to implement. This is something I would definitely do with my class in the future as it would give them a chance to improve analytical skills as well as teamwork skills. I am also looking forward to giving children creative freedom to create dance and to analyse their own achievements and improvements within dance. On a personal level, I feel that I have also improved my own skills through dance as feel so much more confident when performing and when creating dance when I wasn’t before. I have loved the past few weeks of the dance sessions. This is something I never though I would enjoy but I am really looking forward to teaching dance now thanks to the sessions.

 

Workshop 2- Music- Ukulele

This week in the music session, we had the chance to have ago at using the ukulele. I really enjoyed using the ukulele as I had never played one before. I found it rather challenging and I think I would need a lot more practice. I had a look at the other resources on moodle too which were very useful for not only teaching a primary class but for myself too. These resources are quite easy to follow but could be confusing at first. Letting children use instruments like this is very good for their creativity and stimulation as it is rather challenging but fun at the same time. The ukulele is not something I have personally seen being used before in school and so children may not be used to this type of instrument and so I would be keen on giving children the opportunity to experience using something they are maybe not familiar with.

I couldn’t establish a clear link between the two workshops today. However, there is a common theme of confidence building and challenge.  In the first workshop, it was a challenge to perform in front of a large audience but it helped improve confidence within individuals. Also, in the second workshop, there could be a lack of understanding about the ukulele and so in order to gain confidence, learners would have to challenge themselves in playing the instrument which my be daunting at first.

 

References

Creative Culture Education (n.d.) Creative Partnerships. The National Foundation for creative learning. [Online] Available: http://www.creativitycultureeducation.org/creative-partnerships (ccessed: 22nd December 2017)

Tallis, T. (2013) Tallis Habits Pedagogy Wheel. [Online] Available: http://www.thomastallisschool.com/tallis-pedagogy-wheel-guide.html. [ Accessed on 6th October 2017]

 

 

 

This week, the focus was around dance and drama. I found the two workshops very interesting and beneficial in both terms of a teaching and personal view.

Workshop 1- Drama

This week we were focussing on performing, participating in and listening to our fellow colleague’s drama lessons. I thought that the drama’s we were involved with today were very well planned and very engaging. I particularly liked a drama lesson that focussed on a book that we as a cohort read last year. The book is named ‘Room’ by Emma Donoghue and follows the story of a mum and son who are confined to a small room with basic equipment at the hands of the kidnapper and woman abuser called ‘Old Nick’. The group focussed on issues that no other group had focussed on before such as violence, empowerment, objectification and control/treatment from men towards women in society. The lesson was also very clever in terms of using different conventions and the placing of them. For example, the group portrayed ‘Old Nick’ as a bad character the whole way through the convention of hot seating whereas before, all the other groups portrayed a change in the character in the hot seating convention. I also liked the fact that the group made the class carry out the conventions in silence which I felt added an element of seriousness to the lesson because of the topic. Personally, I felt more engaged in this lesson out of any others previous to this. This lesson was focussed towards a secondary school level but showed how we as primary teachers could use drama to explore more serious themes in primary schools such as bullying. Through this input today, I have picked up some skills as a student teacher and skills as a learner. I have picked up the skills of confidence and analysis as a student teacher and as a learner because I was able to analyse the characters and themes in the drama and then had the confidence to share my opinion to the class through the hot seating and though tunnel conventions.
In terms of teaching drama, from the input today, I have picked up some tips such as doing all or certain parts of the drama in silence to try and create a more serious atmosphere depending on the theme or story. I have also learned to let the children take control of the story to a certain extent to let them have the opportunity to come up with their own ideas and essentially, have fun whilst still learning about drama.

Workshop 2- Dance

The focus of the lecture this morning was looking at the ‘Midway Model’ for dance in schools (Smith-Autard, 2002). This model explores how dance should be both fun and creative as well as aesthetically pleasing, emphasising that both components should be equal to each other. Thus, children need to learn to combine the ten basic dance moves with their own creativity and imagination to achieve a creative, aesthetically pleasing dance.

We were also looking at creative dance from the perspective of teaching and its importance within the curriculum. According to Cone (2009) creative dance should be empowering, fun, meaningful and safe. Alongside this creative dance should be directed mostly by the child or children. For children to get the most out of creative dance, they should be able to use their own ideas to create their own dance which is their own vision.

I was always worried about teaching dance before the module, however, after participating in the workshops, I have since changed my view on this. I now feel a lot more comfortable teaching this because I only really need to be able to teach the 10 basic steps of dance and be able to give small points of guidance to the children. I was also worried about losing control of the class in dance but I feel that it is best to let the children have almost complete free reign over their dance, with my input only to help create moves if needed and to ensure the children are co-operating and being fair with each other. It is also important to allow children to lead their own learning in dance because it is helps improve confidence, team-building skills, creative thinking and problem solving skills (Cone, 2009).

We also had a dance workshop which was based on the theme of Christmas. The class was split into four groups and were each given different tasks to contribute to a dance lesson aimed at a primary 4/5 class to the theme of Christmas. My group had the task of creating a full body stretch warm up which targeted all the muscles and joints in the body which would ensure safety in terms of body safety. We started from the head down to ensure all muscles were covered. The rest of the tasks were based around warm up games and dance moves based on Christmas.

I really enjoyed this work-shop because it further re-enforced how easy it can be to teach dance. I found it very useful to give the children pieces of paper and let them draw pictures or words related to a theme and then let them come up with a dance move relate to this word or picture. I was amazed at how easy it can be to teach dance. After the dance inputs, I have completely changed my view on teaching dance. I now feel so much more confident in myself and I am now looking forward to teaching dance in future instead of dreading it. This was a fun and exciting work-shop for not only children but for adults too as it taught us some great tactics and values to use when teaching dance. I have also learned that dance doesn’t have to be the stereo-typical ballet and hip hop, we can use dance to learn about many different topics such as different cultures, weather, holidays and almost anything else. I look forward to the future in teaching dance.

There was links of freedom, responsibility and teamwork within the two workshops as we had to plan and manage our own dance routine and micro-teaching activity as a team whilst listening to each others views and contributing to the group in both tasks.

References
Cone, T.P., 2009. Following their lead: Supporting children’s ideas for creating dances. Journal of Dance Education, 9(3), pp.81-89.

Smith-Autard, J. (2002) The Art of Dance Education. London: A & C Black

Today, the focus was around visual arts and music. There was no morning lecture today but there were two workshops.

Workshop 1- Music
In the workshop today, we were focussing on using instruments whilst learning about using symbols as music notes to create and follow and rhythm/pulse. We were using a resource that focussed on simplifying music beats/note values in the form of shapes such as squares and circles. We were also using different small phrases to keep in rhythm. For example- ta ta ta or ta ta, which conveys three beats or two beats. We used drumsticks to carry this out. Aside from this, the learning was also focused around using notes and harmony as well as learning about the lines and spaces in music. Whilst learning about this, we had the opportunity to try this out for ourselves in small groups by playing the glockenspiel.
I found this workshop very interesting and useful because I had never seen or used this method of learning/teaching music before. I liked the use of shapes to show the value of a beat because it was simple and easy to follow. It was interesting to see how music could be simplified in ways that I never even considered before. I did find the very fast pieces very difficult to keep up with, however, in a primary setting, much more time would be dedicated to the learning of the music.
I really like the idea of using symbols to teach music before advancing to proper symbols because it gives children the same chance to learn because they are all reading the same music so therefore, learning together at the same stage. This type of learning promotes inclusion within education at early level and perhaps into second level which is a positive factor.

 

Workshop 2- Visual Arts

Today, we were discussing art within the primary sector and our own experiences whilst in schools of the arts. Personally, during my placement, I haven’t seen much of the arts or the integration of them within each other or in other areas of the curriculum. I have seen some art work displayed on the walls of the classroom but that is all. I find this quite sad when there is so much opportunity to teach the arts in schools. However, in my classroom on placement, the children all have a reflective journal in which they can either write or draw whatever they want in any way they want. This journal is totally personalized to their creative wants, needs and desires and they are not guided in any way what to write or draw. This promotes creativity in the visual arts within education because there is no external influence over the children and they are free to draw or write whatever they want. I like it also because there is no expectation of perfection or standard from the teacher towards the children or expectation of sharing their ideas and artwork which gives children more reign, confidence and creativity of their own work and within the arts in general. Hence, reiterating that “It is essential that educators develop a creative practice which enables creativity through the encouragement of children’s ideas and possibilities, focusing on not inhibiting the individuals process”(Jeffrey and Craft, 2003, Craft and Jeffrey, 2004, cited in, Craft, 2007).

Here is some examples of the art work on display in the school I am placed in.

Within the lecture, I liked hearing about my colleague’s experiences of art within the classroom. It was useful to hear activities that they had experienced which I could implement in my own practice, but it was also rather harrowing to find that a lot of them hadn’t experienced any art at all whilst on placement.

References

• Craft, A. (2007) Creativity and possibility in the Early Years .[Online]. Available: www.tactyc.org.uk/pdfs/reflection-craft.pdf

We focused on drama and music this week. The inputs were a little different than what we are normally experience but they were brilliant to experience and will help my teaching practice significantly in the near future.

Drama

This week in the drama input, we had the chance to teach our class a drama lesson through microteaching. Our group chose to focus our story on ‘The Gruffalo’ by Julia Donaldson. We chose this story because we thought that it would be easy for the class to understand and engage with. As well as this, it is a well-known children’s story book and so we felt that it would be easy to implement this into real practice in the future.
We decided to use various drama conventions. This included; narration, role on the wall, teacher in role, voxpop, thought tunnel and flashforward. However, the class could use other conventions such as mime and freeze-frame when performing if they wished. Kelsey and I had the task of directing and teaching the thought tunnel to the class. We asked two groups to make the tunnel and Kelsey and I played the role of the mouse and Gruffalo. The class then told us how they felt about the characters as we walked through the tunnels.
I felt rather anxious before the lesson because I don’t really like drama or performing in front of other people. Bloomfield and Childs (2002) say that drama is communicated and portrayed through actions, movement and talking in front of an audience to gain a reaction. In order to do this, it takes great confidence, which is something I struggle with. So, for me, this is something I felt quite nervous about. I was nervous because I felt that if I was embarrassed or nervous then I wouldn’t be able to deliver this part of the lesson as well as I wanted to.
Despite this feeling, I feel that the lesson went really well. I think that I did better that I thought I would with my part of the lesson because I felt that the class engaged well and I managed my nerves well. I feel that the class responded well to the lesson and engaged well with the story. The class participated very well even when we didn’t think things were going as best as they could have.

 

Things that we could improve on

• In reflection, I think that a few things could have been improved about the lesson. I think that the timing could have been a lot better. our lesson took 35 minutes when the guideline was only 20 minutes. I think we tried to cram everything into the lesson and underestimated the amount of time that it took to carry out each convention.

• I also think that we could have improved on our standing position. We mostly remained in the same spot of the room for the whole drama. I think that this was because of nerves and could be improved through practising teaching drama on a regular basis.

• A comment that was made was that the story could be hard to engage with on a personal level if you had never heard it before. We should take this into consideration and sometimes pick a story that children do know before- hand. We could also introduce the story before working on a drama in a primary school, such as, simply reading the story one day so that the children have had a chance to hear the story.

 

 

 

Things that went well

• We incorporated a wide range of conventions in the drama which gave us and the class more experience of using them.
• We gave the class thinking time when carrying out the conventions.

• We read the story loud and clear for the class to hear and interpret.

• We gave all the groups a chance to perform and participate.

 

Overall, I think that we did do a good job of the drama lesson. There are some things that could have been improved but this will get better with more practice. I actually really enjoyed teaching the drama which I never thought I would because I was quite nervous before it. I think that this activity has helped me combat my nerves a lot because I was pushed out of my comfort zone which is really good for me even though it might not feel like it at the time. I also think that the group worked really well together as we all contributed ideas and helped each other along the way during the lesson. We all took a part of the lesson to deliver so everyone had some responsibility and not just one or two people which I really liked. This is something I would like to do again because I feel that this sort of thing will help my confidence in teaching and performing drama.

If I was teaching a lesson like this with my own class in the future I would hope to achieve outcomes such as:

I have developed confidence and skills in creating and presenting drama which explores real and imaginary situations, using improvisation and script. EXA 1-14a ( Scottish Government, n.d, p8).

I enjoy creating, choosing and accepting roles, using movement, expression and voice. EXA 1-12a  (Scottish Government, n.d, p7).

 

 

Music

This week in the music input, we were very lucky to have some primary school children come in and teach us how to play some stringed instruments. The children were part of a school project which allows them to be taught how to play string instruments from P4-P7. I also found it amazing how the children were so engaged and played so well from only having one lesson a week as an orchestra and never have one to one lessons. They also have the chance to perform in concerts, competitions and conferences. They recently had the chance to perform in front of Prince Charles, who is the sponsor/funder of the project. The children started by teaching us some warm up games which helped with finger position and strength. I thought that these exercises were really useful because they are not only useful for improving fine motor control, they are fun too. The children loved carrying out these exercises and also loved teaching them to us.

I was paired with a primary 5 pupil who taught me how to play the cello. He first showed me the strings and told me what notes they were. He taught me a rhyme to remember the names of the notes. This was ‘Aunt Daisy Goes Crazy’ or, notes (ADGC). He also showed me how to hold the cello and where to put my fingers when playing the strings.
We then had the opportunity to play a small tune on the instruments. This was the first time I had ever played a cello before, so I found it quite difficult, but my partner was so confident in showing me where I was going wring and how to fix it. I found it so humbling and amazing at how well the children were able to teach us how to play these instruments with such confidence and ease. It was lovely to see how much the children loved playing the instruments and how keen and engaged they were in teaching us how to also .I loved this input and has made me realise even further of why I want to do this job. Today was very inspiring and showed why teaching is such an amazing profession. It was interesting and brilliant to see that through music, these children have confidence and charisma about music which I have never seen before. This was lovely to see.

Throughout both inputs, I found that there were links to confidence and willingness. Firstly, there was the promotion of confidence in the drama workshop and the music workshop as we had to be confident in standing in front of our peers performing and we had to be confident in trying out a new instrument. Secondly, we had to be willing to participate in the workshops or the activities simply wouldn’t have worked to their full potential.

 

References

Bloomfield, A and Childs J. (2002). Teaching Integrated Arts in the Primary School: Dance, Drama, Music, and the Visual Arts. London: David Fulton Publishers

Scottish Government .(n.d) Curriculum for Excellence. [Online] Available: https://www.education.gov.scot/Documents/all-experiences-and-outcomes.pdf (Accessed 21st December 2017)

The two topics we were focussing on this week were drama and music. I started off in the drama workshop this week.

Workshop 1- Drama

In this week’s drama input we were focussing on some new drama conventions again. These were then implemented in a Halloween theme. We were given the setting of a haunted house where an incident had occurred. We were not told what the incident was which left us room to implement the new learning of the conventions. This was interesting to see as each group had similar ideas but completely different at the same time despite being told the same information about the haunted house.

We also revisited previous drama conventions that we had learned. This included, ‘teacher in role’ and mime. We discussed ‘teacher in role again’. We discussed how this is a very useful technique to set the scene of the drama, but it is also the technique that a lot of teachers may feel uneasy about using because it gives the discussion of the drama room to go in almost any direction. Personally, I do feel a bit uneasy about using this convention, but I think that with practice I will become more confident using it.

We then moved on to looking at some new conventions. Here is the four that we learned.

Flashback– when the characters flashback to point before the drama or to a previous point in the drama.

Flashforward– when the characters move forward to a certain point in the drama or act out a scene which occurs after the drama.

Narration– when someone narrates the drama/ story and tells the audience what is happening.

Slow motion– when a scene or part of a scene is acted out slower that the rest o emphasise the drama.

After learning about these new conventions, we then had the opportunity to engage with them through acting out our own scenes relating to the theme. I enjoyed this part because I felt that by this part of the workshop I felt more comfortable performing short scenes in form of the rest of the class. I actually quite enjoyed it.

The use of the different drama conventions allows a creative opportunity for children as well as the chance to develop social skills through producing a piece of drama as a team. This is due to the activity being mainly child led with a lo of freedom to come up with their own ideas to integrate into the drama.

We also looked at the work of Augustus Boal, who came up with the convention of ‘Forum Theatre’. This is a controversial convention because of the usage of it. The convention is used to allow the audience to suggest ways in which the drama could be changed or improved. Personally, I think that this convention worked well in the class lesson, but I can see how this convention is controversial. It could be hard to implement in the class because of the time factor and more importantly, children may feel that their work is not good enough and knock their because people are wanting to change things about it. Csikszentmihalyi (2013), says that it is important to have certain building blocks in the creative arts which includes; no worry about failing and ensuring that self-consciousness diminishes. Due to this, I probably wouldn’t use this convention, unless I thought it was suitable to the class in particular.  I want to ensure that every child in my class feels confident and proud of their work. I also want to promote individual creativity which makes the child keep wanting to participate in drama.

Linking back to the Thomas Tallis Pedagogical wheel, (Thomas Tallis School, 2013), I feel that I have became more reflective in drama as I have been more keen to look at where I could have improved. As well as this, I have been more persistent and kept on trying to engage more with drama which I have been successful with. It is important that I keep persisting in drama as well as improving in the techniques I am using in order to give the learners in my care the best experience possible.

At the end of the lesson, we also talked about next week’s task. We have to plan a 20-minute micro teaching lesson on a children’s book of our choice and teach it to the class. I feel very nervous about this task as this is something I have never done before. However, I know that I will get through it and perform to the best of my ability. I hope that after next week, my confidence will increase even further.

Workshop 2- Music

In this workshop, we started by looking at the importance of the voice in general and for teachers. We learned that the voice is one of the most important aspects of the body and that we as individuals and more importantly, as teachers, need to ensure that we look after our voices as best we can. “The voice has become an increasingly important tool at work. A clear and carrying voice quality at a natural pitch is a pre-requisite for success in communication”

Fritzell (1996) cited by GTCS (2010).

Next, we looked at a resource devised for children and primary schools called ‘Choon Baboon’. The music resource teaches children different songs which can relate to specific topics such as Pirates and The Titanic. This is very useful resource as it fits in well with the expectations and outcomes of Curriculum for Excellence. For example: I can sing and play music from other styles and cultures, showing growing confidence and skill while learning about musical notation and performance directions. EXA 1-16a (Scottish Government,n.d,p9).

I thought that the resource was very easy to use for teachers as it is laid out very well and the video’s do all the teaching. This would be perfect for teachers who do not feel entirely comfortable teaching music or for teaching certain topics as there are songs that are specifically related to certain topics. The resource is also very engaging for children as it is easy to follow, has bright colours, has a simple layout with lots of help throughout and has a humorous tone to the materials. This resource could be used with any age of children but would be great to use with a young primary such as primary 1-3 due to the simplicity of the materials and the clear structure.  This is most definitely a resource I would use in the future with any age of class.

Finally, in the last part of the workshop, we looked at the use of graphic scores. This is when we simply draw a grid of boxes. One side (left vertical side) shows the instruments and the horizontal axis shows how many times the instrument will be heard. The group can decide how many beats these instruments will have in each box. We then had the opportunity to devise our own graphic score with any instruments we wanted. Our group chose to go with the theme of Christmas. I found this activity brilliant as it was easy to follow, and with clear explanation and support to pupils, this would be very easy and effective to implement to any age group or to certain topics such as Christmas, animals and many more. This gives children the opportunity to compose music and learn new concepts of music like notes and note values.

Here is our graphic score.

Here is some of the instruments we used.

 

Overall, this week I really enjoyed the two workshops and I now have more of an understanding and have learned some new strategies which I could use to teach these two curricular areas.

 

References

Tallis, T. (2013) Tallis Habits Pedagogy Wheel. [Online] Available: http://www.thomastallisschool.com/tallis-pedagogy-wheel-guide.html. [ Accessed 18th December 2017]

The General Teaching Council for Scotland. (2010). Voice and the Teaching Profession. [Online]. Available: http://www.gtcs.org.uk/web/FILES/FormUploads/voice-and-the-teaching-profession1652_214.pdf [Accessed: 18th December 2017].

Scottish Government. (n.d). curriculum for excellence: expressive arts experiences and outcomes. [Online]. Available: https://www.education.gov.scot/Documents/expressive-arts-eo.pdf (Accessed 18th December 2017)

 

 

This week we were revisiting the themes of dance and drama. My initial thoughts of dance were dread and hate. I have never been confident participating in dance in most of my years in school or just my life in general, so I thought that I would hate this workshop. In the first stage of the lesson, I did feel like this. We were warming up through dance which I felt very embarrassed about. We danced a warm up to a remix version of ‘Thriller’. However, I started to ease into the follow up activities of zombie tig, splat and the bean game. I think that this helped because it was fun games in general for everyone to play which took the embarrassment away. I think that this is a great way to warm up for this kind of activity, based on last week of learning the different muscles that we use in dance. It gave the opportunity for us to completely warm up without feeling like we were in a gym. This could also give the opportunity to teach children in a primary class further information about the body because we could ask them about what muscles we are using doing these warm up and so on.

I enjoyed this week because there was full class interaction which made the activities and tasks less daunting. The tasks were initially follow up tasks from the previous week which were related to the theme of Halloween. Because I was absent the previous week, I joined a group and quickly learned their dance as best as I could. I found this quite difficult at first because of the time pressure and because I felt a little bit embarrassed.

After this activity we then formed as a whole class and came up with 9 more moves which would form the class dance. These were Halloween related. For example, a skeleton move. I really liked this activity because it gave everyone an opportunity to contribute their thoughts and ideas to the class. This is something I would use in my class to give owner ship and creative opportunity to my class instead of me just teaching them a dance to copy.

To follow this, we were then taught a small part of the dance which was the introduction. Apart from this, we as a group came up with this dance ourselves minimal tutor influence. Cone (2009), believes think that this is very important in teaching creative dance because it challenges children to find their own solutions in moves, costumes, props and special awareness as well as promotes engaging in imagination. This, as a whole, allows children to have the opportunity to grow in confidence as creators and in performing. Through this, children will have the opportunity to feel proud of their own work and will feel a sense of achievement around creating their own dance to perform. Further to this, The Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (2004), states that “Pupils who are encouraged to think creatively and independently become more interested in discovering things for themselves, more open to new ideas, keen to work with others to explore ideas, willing to work beyond lesson time when pursuing an idea or vision”. Resulting in their pace of learning, achievement levels and self-esteem increasing.

 

By having the class perform the dance altogether and then breaking off to perform their own section within this will help combat embarrassment and nerves because the spotlight isn’t solely on one person or group.

After this work shop, I feel a lot more comfortable teaching this sort of lesson. I don’t feel as embarrassed anymore because of the techniques used in the activities. This is important for me as a teacher because I want children to enjoy dance and want to participate because I feel that I lost out as a child because I hated it so much. This was due to being made to stand up in front of a whole class either on my own or in two’s or three’s. Because of this, this is a technique I would use to use whole class involvement instead of small groups.

To conclude, I think that this workshop helps promote the values of teamwork and creativity. In primary schools, through dance, it is clear that children are encouraged to become successful, confident, responsible and contribute which encompasses Curriculum for Excellences four capacities for children to achieve in education (Scottish Government, 2004). On a personal level I feel more confident and I look forward to teaching dance in the future instead of dreading it.

Workshop 2- Drama

This week in the drama work shop, we focused on more techniques/conventions used in drama. We looked at five new conventions.

Vox Pop– teacher acts as a new reporter and asks the children/learners questions.

Mime- acting out a scene in silence.

Role on the Wall– Drawing an outline of a character in the drama and writing what you/the group think of them on the outside and what they think of themselves on the inside.

Thought Tracking– when the children express their thoughts on a character.

Voice in the head– When a character in the drama pauses at a point at expresses how they feel about themselves or another character to show their perspective, so the audience can fully understand their feelings.

We acted out these conventions to a story called ‘The Tunnel’ by Anthony Browne

Here is an example of ‘Role on the Wall’ relating to the story.

I still found the workshop quite challenging because I still have a little bit of embarrassment being in front of the class performing. However, I feel that this is improving over the weeks with practice. I will keep practising through being in primary schools, in my own time and in university classes.

Over the weeks, we have been discussing things that can go wrong in a drama and things that may not go as planned. I think that this is what I will struggle with most in my teaching practice of this curricular area because I am a person who likes things to work in a clear structure and way. I think that the thing I will struggle most with is allowing children time to think of an answer without me trying to come up with what I want them to say almost immediately or prompting answers that I want them to say. I think that I will try and work on this by saying questions out loud and counting to ten to allow a sufficient amount of time for children to answer. I will also research more strategies that could help me.

There was a link of time management between the two workshops today. I have learned that it is very important to manage time effectively in order to enhance the learning experience. It is important to allow time for learners to think effectively to establish their thoughts and creativity (Eisner, 2004). This is something that I will always try to practise in future as it will help build confidence within learners.

Overall, I did enjoy this workshop and would like to try and implement these drama conventions into my own teaching practice in the near future as they give children a perfect opportunity to express themselves and provide a sense of escape for some children.

 

References

Eisner, E. (2004) What Can Education Learn from the Arts about the Practice of Education? International Journal of Education & the Arts. Vol.5(4) pp.1-13.

Cone, T.P. (2009). Following their lead: Supporting children’s ideas for creating dances. Journal of Dance Education, 9(3), pp.81-89.

Scottish Government (2004). A Curriculum for Excellence – The Curriculum Review Group. [Online] Available: http://www.gov.scot/Resource/Doc/26800/0023690.pdf (Accessed 18th December 2017)

Qualifications and Curriculum Authority. (2004). Creativity: find it, promote it. [Online]. Available: http://moodle.uws.ac.uk/pluginfile.php/109338/mod_resource/content/0/QCA%20Creativity.pdf (Accessed 18th December 2017)

This week the class were learning about dance and music. This is the first week the class have had a dance input. I was absent during these inputs, but my peers filled me in on what happened in the sessions.

Workshop 1- Dance

In the first input of dance, we were making up a dance. We learned that firstly, to carry out dance, especially with children, we must first warm up. A warm up game/ strategy that we tried out was highland tig. The class then had to label the outline of a body that had been drawn around. With this simple strategy, we were then able to label different parts of the body and muscles which is crucial for children to know about in order to stay safe during a lesson or activity which includes dance or physical activity.

According to Cone (2009), “One of the most powerful experiences dance educators can offer children is the opportunity to create a dance that reflects their ideas”. It is also important for us as teachers to let children be creative in their own ways and devise their own dances.  In order for them to do this, we must take a step back and allow them to create ideas for themselves which will allow them to build their own confidence and solutions to problems that may occur (Cone, 2009).

It is important for children to have independence through dance but it is also extremely important that children are safe, having fun and that their is meaning in all aspects of dance. It is the role of the educator to ensure that this is in place for the full lesson.

 

We then learned about the 10 key stages of dance that teachers should teach to children. These are as follows; twist, balance, turn, kick, jump, hop, gesture, slide, roll and reach. Before this input and information, I would never have been able to incorporate this into a lesson or make up a dance on my own. Whereas now, with this simple piece of information, I would feel comfortable, after a few more practices, to make up my own lesson to teach to a primary class.

This was then implemented into our own learning by making up our own dance in groups. These 10 key steps had to feature in our dance, but we could vary them however we wanted. This activity was then further elaborated by adding in another 6 concepts of dance moves. These were; jack hammer, wing, grand jets, shorty George, sponfebob and pressure turm. One of these moves was then incorporated into the dance.

I think that this is a great activity/ lesson for children to do because it encourages creativity in both child and student. It is also easier for the teacher to implement, especially if the teacher is not confident teaching dance to children. It is important for children to lead learning but to be safe also.

If this is followed then children will be presented with a mass of opportunities in the arts through creativity. Through the process of creativity in dance, children will be able to generate ideas that have value to them as well as having the capability of using imagination and analysing and correcting their own mistakes (Education Scotland, 2013).

Overall, I look forward to participating in the next dance session.

 

Workshop 2- Music

This week in the music class we were looking at the importance of music in other areas of education. The class read and analysed a document called ‘International Journal of Music Education’. The class was then split into small groups and each group were given a section to complete a mind map presentation on. Because I was absent, I never had the chance to carry out this activity, however, my peers shared and allowed me to document their findings for the purpose of this blog post. This group were given the task of finding out about the importance of music in numeracy, they found that there were very few links between this. Here is a few of the fact and findings that were presented. Where there is few links between music and numeracy, some links have been established.

 

 

Research into the impact of arts programmes found that children who participated in arts programmes performed better in mathematics than those who did not participate. Children who took part in the experiment for the longest had the highest scores out of the participants. Gardiner et al. (1996) in Hallam (2010).
Haley (2001) also found that those who had played an instrument before the 4th grade had higher results in mathematics than other children.
Overall, the evidence suggests that being actively engaged with music can improve performance in mathematics.

(permission from author to use in post)

The group then presented the findings to the class and then moved onto a lesson planning activity. Due to the lack of findings on the topic of numeracy, the group decided to turn their attention to the importance of music in literacy instead for the lesson planning activity. The group came up with the idea of using three short excerpts in the class and allowing the children to choose their favourite which inspires them to write a creative story.

It seems that both workshops relate to the theme of integration and importance within other areas of the curriculum. The integration of the expressive arts to other subjects in education is extremely important due to the transferral of skills and attributes such as motivation and ambition, confidence in validation of their own opinions, application of creative processes in other situations and teamwork (Education Scotland, 2013).

Although I was absent, I think that this input is particularly useful, mainly for us as student teachers because it allowed us to develop our skills in lesson planning and critical analysis which can only benefit our teaching practice.

 

References

Cone, T (2009) Following Their Lead: Supporting Children’s Ideas for Creating Dances, Journal of Dance Education [Online] Vol.9(3), pp.81-89. Available: Taylor & Francis. [Accessed 17th December 2017]

Education Scotland (2013) Creativity Across Learning 3-18. [Online] Available: https://www.education.gov.scot/improvement/Documents/cre39-impact-report.pdf [Accessed 17th Decemebr 2017]

Hallam, S (2010) The power of music: It’s impact on the intellectual, social and personal development of children and young people, International Journal of Music Education [Online] pp.269-289. Available: http://ijm.sage.pub.com/content/28/3/269 [Accessed: 17 October 2017]

 

 

Workshop 1

In this session, we were focussing on continuing from the work last week. We were asked to expand our prints from last week. We started this by copying one of our prints in the photocopier to a reduced size on a piece of white A4 paper. We were then asked to expand the painting through drawing. I enjoyed this work shop because it gave me a sense of freedom whilst drawing because there was no expectation for the drawing to look a certain way. I would love to do this sort of activity with children because I think that it would allow them to develop their creativity. This could be drawn out over a few lessons to keep the children engaged with the activity.

Here is the process of my drawing continuation:

Original print before photocopying

Original print after photocopying

Some of the continuation/expansion

Further expansion by adding roof

Further expansion by adding detail to the roof- tiles

Adding detail to the outside of the house- fence, path, chimney, pebbles

Adding final detail. Used tip-ex to create texture on roof/surfaces to try and achieve the texture/effect of snow.

We then had the opportunity to look at different types of colouring books for children, as well as different types of art books related to primary teaching. I enjoyed this as I liked seeing the different variety of art work that children can produce and how these types of colouring books can help keep a child calm but at the same time allow them to express their creative mind. We also had the opportunity to have a look at a clip of ‘Room 13’. This video clip was very beneficial as it showed and explained how the children use the room as a visual stimulus to create any type of artwork or project that they want. This could also be in the form of a class project. I think that this concept is a brilliant idea because it allows children to be very creative and expressive whilst in a fun and safe environment.

Here is some of the books we looked at.

 

I really enjoyed the workshop because I loved having the opportunity to be creative with my art work in a way I had never experienced before. This workshop also opened my eyes as to how we, as primary teachers can do art with pupils in different ways like this rather than just the stereotypical ways like creating a Christmas card or painting a house.

 

Workshop 2

In the second workshop we had the opportunity to have a go at using ‘Garage band’ on the Macs. I was familiar with this app but I had never actually used it before. I wasn’t looking forward to the workshop because I never enjoyed using this kind of software whilst at school. Firstly, we were shown how to create our own backing track/beat using the software. The track was made up of different instruments and different beats. We added in fade ins and fade outs to our tracks which helped track flow easier.

Here is what we were doing and a video clip of some of my work.

 

Secondly, we then had the chance to create our own short animation. We chose a video from a list of animations and then added in our own choice of sound effects and noises. Overall, I enjoyed this workshop because it was very practical and fun. However, it was also frustrating at times when the software wasn’t working exactly the way I wanted it to. I would like to do a similar activity with children in the future but I would like to do a lot of planning around it to try and make it run smooth. I would probably split it into two or three sessions so that the children had more time to spend on getting the details of their track/animation correct.

As well as giving children the opportunity to explore the arts, this activity can provide cross curricular links for children. An example of this would be to get children to create their own soundtrack/ animation and then write a script or story to accompany their work. Hence, creating links between expressive arts and literacy.

In the real world, this is an easy way that teachers can implement learning music and using musical resources into education. All children won’t have access to learning a physical instrument due to budget cuts in local authorities and through selection processes in some schools. However, learning about music does not always have to be learning to play an instrument.

For example, the E’s and O’s relating to using digital resources in the arts are as follows.

I can use my voice, musical instruments and music technology to experiment with sounds, pitch, melody, rhythm, timbre and dynamics. EXA 2-17a
(Scottish Government, p9).

I have the opportunity to choose and explore a range of media and technologies to create images and objects, discovering their effects and suitability for specific tasks. EXA 1-02a
(Scottish Government, p3).

I believe there was a link of interactive learning. Through both inputs, the tasks were very practical and interactive which was good but could be frustrating when having difficulty working the technology in the music workshop.

 

Overall, I enjoyed this week and found it very beneficial for my practice in the future. I look forward to next week.

References

Scottish Government. (n.d). curriculum for excellence: expressive arts experiences and outcomes. [Online]. Available: https://www.education.gov.scot/Documents/expressive-arts-eo.pdf (Accessed 18th December 2017)

 

 

In the lecture this week we were introduced to a painting called ‘Windows in the West’ by Avril Paton. The painting is of a tenement building set in the west of Glasgow. At first, I didn’t understand by we were bothering with a painting like this as I couldn’t see how this would serve any purpose or interest for children in a primary classroom setting. However, as the lecture progressed, I began to understand how children could become engaged with something like this as I was becoming more engaged with the painting. I began to imagine what was actually going on in the painting and imagine the backstory to the painting, rather than just view it as a painting. I understand now further, how this could be used in a drama lesson as a stimulus for a great lesson. I think that by introducing something like this to children would help them to be more imaginative and help them to engage with art work in a fun way rather than just staring at a painting/picture whilst being read facts or told exactly what to do.

Here is a picture of the painting ‘Windows in the West’.

(‘Windows in the West’, Wikipedia, Avril Paton)

 

We finished the lecture by speaking about the first prints made. This is something that I had never really thought about before. We learned that the first person to make a physical print was Gutenberg who printed the Bible. I never knew this before the lecture and I realise now that if we never had printing way back then, we wouldn’t be able to read and write today. We also probably wouldn’t be able to live the way we live today with technology, for example; if the first print was never made we wouldn’t have the technology today to publish multiple copies of books and so much more. We also looked at the do’s and don’ts of primary teaching in art which I found very useful.

We were then asked to watch this video and use Taylors, PROCESS, FORM, CONTENT, MOOD model to analyse what the painting is about. Here is my analysis.

PROCESS:
The work was started on a night during winter months.
There were only limited tools used. This was a blank canvas and a paintbrush.
She liked the look of the building that was in front of her on a winters night, particularly the snow and just began to paint.
She never photographed the building as it was straight in front of her home.
Avril did different parts gradually over 6 months and painted it gradually over these months.
Avril had to have good memory skills as the seasons changed over the months. She would have had to remember what the house looked like in winter even when it was summer. She may also have needed to have a good imagination to paint certain details if they weren’t physically visual or in front of her.

FORM:
Avril split the painting up in to different sections and completed it at different times instead of focussing on the painting as a whole at the one time.
She keeps with the content by trying to keep on track with what the house looks like in winter.
It affirms the artist’s work as there is a lot of detail, precision and care in the painting.
She has used very similar colours to each other. She has used browns, white, grey, black etc. she hasn’t used many bright colours and there isn’t one part of the painting that stands out.
I think this is a harmonious piece of art work.
I think that the building itself is more dominant as it is the brown colour of the building that stands out most in the painting as a whole, I think it adds a depth to the painting that wouldn’t be achieved by only using black and white.
The main shape is the rectangle to achieve the overall shape of the building. I then notice that there are smaller rectangles within this shape to add even more detail to the painting.
Rectangles keep recurring in the painting and also, the way the lines are positioned create the 3D element to the painting which couldn’t be achieved by using only straight lines.
I think the work holds well together as it is a very beautiful picture and the painting seem to flow and shows the beauty of the setting. I think the painting is pleasing as a whole because of this.

CONTENT
It is about a typical tenement house in the west of Glasgow in winter.
I would say the artist has remembered the subject as she looked one day and then had to remember what it looked like other days that she was painting it.
I think that the painting is representational as it is a physical place and represents what a building in Scotland will most likely look like.
There is a hidden part of the painting. The artist has painted herself at a party in the building into the painting. We would never know this unless she tells us this.

MOOD
I think that it makes me appreciate the beauty in certain parts of Scotland that we may not look at as beautiful in real life.
It makes me feel very calm and festive as it reminds me of Christmas and wintery nights.
It shows the true beauty of Scotland, especially in winter as we are lucky to get to experience this type of weather when a lot of people don’t get to experience this in their country.
Avril says she painted the picture because she wanted to share the prettiness/ beauty of this building at this time of year.
I think the work I quite quiet as it seems to be very calm and relaxing but also a bit exciting and homely because it is winter and near Christmas. The picture just reminds me of Christmas and the party season.
I think this picture has affected me directly because I feel more appreciative of the beautiful places we have in Scotland very close to us.
I think it has affected me because this is close to where I stay and I love that time of year. I never noticed that we had such beautiful places/buildings so close to us. I think I appreciate it more after seeing this painting.

 

Workshop 1 – Printing

This work shop was a continuation of learning about ‘Windows in the West’ by Avril Paton. In this session we were asked to take our favourite part of the painting and draw/trace it onto a polystyrene tile. I vaguely remembered print making from primary school and I remembered enjoying it so I was looking forward to the activity.

We were given a polystyrene tile and told choose four different colours of A4 paper which we folded in half. We were then asked to  draw our favourite part of the painting onto the tile and then roll one colour onto the polystyrene tile and print this onto the paper we were given. I enjoyed this activity as I loved seeing the prints being made and just getting messy. I would love to do this activity with children in a primary school, perhaps as a class project making Christmas cards or as a display because it would encourage them to get stuck in and it would also give me the opportunity to teach them about the history of print-making.

I loved seeing the different contrasts between colours best whilst doing this. I loved the effects that this technique made. Even though this is a simple process, it is very effective and would be engaging and straight forward for children to do.

 

Here is the process of print making.

The polystyrene tile we were given was our blank canvas.

We traced or copied a part from this picture or the painting onto the tile.

I drew my favourite part of the painting onto the tile carefully. Here is my final design.

We then chose four different colours of paper and folded them in half.

We then rolled paint onto a board with rollers.

We then rolled the paint over our tile with our design on it and pleased the tile on the paper with a lot of pressure to transfer the design. Here is my four prints.

 

We were then asked to roll one colour onto the polystyrene tile and then print this onto 4 pieces of different coloured A5 paper. I enjoyed this activity as I loved seeing the prints being made and just getting messy. I would love to do this activity with children in a primary school, perhaps as a class project making Christmas cards or as a display because it would encourage them to get stuck in. Alongside this, there could be several cross curricular links explore. For example, looking at patterns in maths or looking at history in media etc as I could teach them about the history of print making.

I loved seeing the different contrasts between colours best whilst doing this. I loved the effects that this technique made. Even though this is a simple process, it is very effective and would be engaging and straight forward for children to do.

 

In order to develop our prints further, we were then allowed to use a range of different colour to create more depth and contrast to the prints. We cut out sections of the polystyrene tile and rolled different coloured paint onto the tile. We then printed this on top of our original prints.

This is the final product of the print making.

This is my favourite print of the four. I like this one best because I think that the colours really compliment each other and stand out.

I absolutely loved this workshop and I will most definitely use this activity in my classroom in the future. I think that I am also creating more of a tolerance for mess as before I hated any type of messy activity. However, I am now realising that mess can be cleaned and that mess can be contained and managed too.

 

Workshop 2 – Drama

This week we had the opportunity to have a go at drama for the first time.

This was something that I was dreading as I hated drama at school and felt so embarrassed doing it at school. I actually dreaded the thought of participating in it at university. I was surprised to find, after taking as a class about drama, that most people weren’t looking forward to it. This  made me feel a bit more at ease because I found that almost everyone was in the same scenario feeling the same way as I did.

We then moved on to learning about technical terms and technique used in drama within a primary school. The five we learned are as follows:

1) Freeze Frame
2) Teacher in Role (TIR)
3) Hot seating
4) Thought Tunnel
5) Improvisation

We were told the story of ‘The Dragon’ and we then experienced seeing these techniques in practice.
We experienced Teacher in Role first (2). This starts by the teacher taking off something noticeable/ attributed to them, normally a name bade, tie, scarf etc. we were told that when the teacher took this off they are now a person in role. In this case the teacher was the mayor of a village being terrorised by a dragon. The teacher then asked the children (who in this case for drama purposes, were referred to as villagers) to gather around quickly and quietly. They were then asked to come up with strategies to help get rid of the dragon that is invading their village. This helps keep the calm and organisation for the teacher and shows that the teacher is still in an authortive position.
Next, we were shown the freeze frame technique (1). This consists of getting the children into groups, counting down from 3 and asking the children to freeze in a position relating to the drama. In this case, the children are asked to get into a position to scare the dragon or create a welcome position etc. Someone from the group then explains why they are in that position. This gives the children a great opportunity to be as creative as they can be.
We had the opportunity to engage with a bit of Hot seating (3). This consisted of either the teacher or the child being in the ‘hot seat’ and pretending to be the dragon. The children were then giving the opportunity to ask the dragon any questions they wanted.
This then lead on to improvisation (5) as the children or teacher must improvise what they are going to say as they don’t know the questions before hand. This can be very funny for children and provides a sense of fun and humour to the lesson for both teachers and pupils.
We finished with a thought tunnel (4). I had never heard of this before. We used the example of a bully situation. Four people were asked to stand facing each other, two on either side. One person was then asked to walk through this tunnel slowly and the other four people were given the opportunity to each say a thought that they thought about the bully/ bullying, one bad and one good. This encouraged us to be open and honest about the situation but also to think more actively about the situation. I think this is a great technique for drama in all topics. If children are taught how to make use of it.

It must be said that teaching drama can be difficult for established teachers and student teachers of all ages and abilities when there are feelings of embarrassment, dread and uncertainty. However, we as teachers must remember the sole purpose of why we teach drama in schools as part of integrated arts. We teach the subject to give children the experience of exploring creativity as well as an opportunity to build on confidence. There is a very close relationship between the knowledge of the teacher and the ways in which the children are learning which includes the environment they are learning in. These two factors influence the way children respond to and engage with the lesson ( Bloomfield and Childs, 2002). Hence, if there is uncertainty within the teacher who is facilitating the learning then children may feel the same towards drama due to the relationship between the factors above.

Throughout the two workshops there is a link of stepping outside the comfort zone. For many people, including adults, it is hard to step outside the comfort zone and let go of insecurities. However, today, I feel that I have stepped out of my comfort zone and tried performing through drama which I was scared to do. I also had a go at painting in which I was uneasy about getting messy but I did it and I enjoyed both activities.

Overall, l loved this work shop and I feel  bit more at ease about drama after engaging with it. I understand that in order to teach to my full potential, I have to let go of my insecurities and just dive in at the deep end even though it may not be completely in my comfort zone. There could be implications in my teaching practice if I don’t let go of insecurities which  could negatively impact on the children I am teaching.

I look forward to the next drama input which is something I never thought I would say.

 

References

Bloomfield, A and Childs, J. (2002). Teaching Integrated Arts in the Primary School. London: David Fulton Publishers.

Taylor, R. (1887). Educating for Art: London: Longman.

 

This week we had two workshops, an art workshops and a music workshop. Both workshops were very interactive and practical. I thoroughly enjoyed both of the workshops and I found them very beneficial for my own knowledge and understanding and also for my practice as a teacher.

In the first worskshop, we were learning about fugue notes as a class. I had never seen figure notes before despite taking music for 6 years as a subject in secondary school. I suppose this is one of the misconceptions in music, that everything needs to be played by following black and white sheet music. I found the figure notes very easy and interactive to use no I would love to use these with a class of my own. Figure notes are easy for children to use as it is simply a labelling process of colours and shapes. It is also less daunting for children that sheet music.

Pictures of figure notes and the tunes we were playing.

I enjoyed playing the tunes on the glockenspiel as it brought me back to being at school. I initially found using the figure notes quite hard because I was so used to playing with sheet music, however, with a bit of practice I found it easier to adapt to using the figure notes.

I like using the figure notes because no prior knowledge is required to play and instrument with them. If a group of adults who have little to no prior knowledge can play using figure notes then anyone can, including children who have never played an instrument before. With time and practice,any child could play music using figure notes. In this day and age,children should be able to be involved in everything despite level of skill and using figure notes there is no limitations to playing music.

In this session we also took part in a class improvisation of ‘Hit the Road Jack’. We were each asked to complete an improvisation of 16 beats using the pentatonic scale which consists of 5 notes. I enjoyed this activity because I felt more confident after taking part in it. This would be a good lesson to teach in a class because it would help build confidence in children as the notes used all sound good together and so whatever the children play can’t sound wrong. There isn’t no limitation to what they can play, they can play as simple or as fancy as they like.

I throughly enjoyed this workshop because everything that we participated in, I think I would use with a wide range of primary children of all ages. I think that this would keep children engaged in the learning because it is extremely fun and practical.

 

In workshop 2 we were in the art studio again. Firstly, we were asked to focus on creativity around painting. At first, I wasn’t really into the idea as it was very messy but as the activity went in, I just got into it and thought to myself, just let your hair down and have fun with it. I realised in this workshop in particular that there isn’t a real need for art in education because this might be the only opportunity that children get to be truly creative and have the chance to get messy as they may not be allowed to at home.

So, first things first we made our own paintbrush. I made my paintbrush from a variety of materials, this included; willow for the base of the brush, cotton wool, wool, string, foam shapes, feathers, sellotape and masking tape. I loved making my own paintbrush because it allowed my personality and creativity to shine through by adding different element different to a mainstream, stereotypical paintbrush.

Here is the process of my paintbrush being created.

 

 

As you can see in the pictures above, the process goes from step to step by adding different elements that can be used for different parts/techniques when painting. For example, I used the Pom Pom at the end of the paintbrush to try and create the ‘whispy clouds’ in the painting.

I learned from this activity that it is important to let children make their own paintbrush because it can be daunting for a child to paint with a mainstream paintbrush because it signifies detail and standards that they may not be able to deliver along leading to a feeling of failure in the child. There is also comparison to other children’s work, whereas, by using there own brush, there are no expectations and it allows a child to show their personality.

moving on to the actual painting. We were asked to paint a described landscape scene with hills, a river, rocks and so on. I wasn’t looking forward to it at first because it was very messy and it wasn’t what I was used to. However, I got stuck in and thoroughly enjoyed getting a bit messy and creative. I also found that by having limited colours (red,white,blue and yellow), I engaged more with my sense of creativity. I was mixing colours to try and create more colours instead of going and getting the colour from a bottle which was really fun. At first I was mixing the colours together on a palette but eventually gave up and just started mixing the colours together on the page to see what I could create. It was fun and enjoyable to get messy and experiment with colours as there was no expectations. It was my painting to experiment with.

This is something I would absolutely love to carry out in a class because I never got to do anything like this myself in primary school.by carrying out a lesson like this, it will allow children to feel proud of their work as no ones is the same. It encourages individuality and personality to shine through in children by using art work. It is important to be mindful as student teachers that without creativity, there would be no distinction between humans and other species and therefore, creativity is the pathways to a more fulfilled, satisfied and distinguished life (Csikszentmihalyi, 2013). It is evident that if creativity is allowed from childhood it will progress into adulthood, allowing many benefits to arise.

From both inputs today, it is clear that their is a link between creativity and the unknown. In visual arts, their is creativity in the sense of creating a paint brush of your own desire as well as interpreting art in your own way. In the music workshop, their is a link to creativity through the improvisation activity, creating a tune from your own mind. Their is unknowing established in these activities as children probably won’t have been exposed to them before. As well as this, their is the mess element in the visual arts that children may not have the opportunity to be involved with and so children may feel intimidated by the mess.

This activity is a very simple technique. However, to make our own paintbrush and mix our own colours is effectively promoting creativity as well as confidence and individuality in both adults and children. The activity is also extremely fun and engaging for children!

Here is the process of my painting below.

In this picture below, I noticed again, that interpretation was totally different and there was individuality in the different paintings. There is no way we can compare these pieces of art as every one is different but has beauty,meaning and skill behind it.

In conclusion, I referred back to the Tallis Pedagogical Wheel.

I looked at the persistent and inquisitive categories in the Tallis Wheel because I was tolerating uncertainty by having a tolerance for mess that I wouldn’t usually have and I was exploring and investigating by experiment with colour and textures.

References

Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1996) Creativity – Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention, New York: Harper Collins.

Tallis, T. (2013) Tallis Habits Pedagogy Wheel. [Online] Available: http://www.thomastallisschool.com/tallis-pedagogy-wheel-guide.html. [ Accessed on 6th October 2017]