This weeks drama input had a Halloween theme which we decided on last week. We started the workshop with a short activity where we were having a town meeting with an estate agent who was trying to sell this really old house, but no body wanted to buy it because of the ‘incident’. The estate agent was looking for volunteers that would be paid to stay in the house for one night to prove that the rumours weren’t true. This activity involved us acting out what it was like in the house when we went to stay for the night. The second activity was when we had the option to choose from two approaches towards the next scenario. We could either flashback to before the ‘incident’ when everything was fine and flash forward to the ‘incident’ itself or we could flashback to the ‘incident’ and flash forward to a time after the ‘incident’. Our group decided to flash back to before the ‘incident’ and flash forward to the ‘incident’ itself. I had the idea that the house used to be a children’s home, called ‘Mrs Homewood’s home for girls’ and the ‘incident’ was when she murdered all the children in her care. Our flashback was to the day before the ‘incident’, the children were pestering Mrs Homewood and making her increasingly angry. They were fighting and breaking windows and constantly asking for her to look at their pictures, they kept going and going until she snapped. To emphasise just how badly the consequences were going to be I (playing Mrs Homewood) slammed my hand down on the table as hard as I could and shouted “ENOUGH”. This seemed to go well as some people were very shocked at the outburst. Our flash forward was to the day of the ‘incident’. It started off with the children playing outside and Mrs Homewood called them in for breakfast. The girls sat down and began eating their porridge and one by one they dropped dead. Two of the girls who hadn’t eaten anything screamed and went to leave the table but Mrs H was standing behind them. She pushed them back into their seats and slit their throats, and that was how the scene ended. After we had finished we were told to do it again and this time someone from the audience would shout stop and would suggest that we do something differently or that they wanted to swap with someone else in the scene. It was suggested that instead of all the girls dying , one of them managed to escape and flee to safety. This was a really fun activity and this was the first week in drama that I felt quite comfortable acting things out. Having a themed drama session like we did this week made things much more fun and I would definitely use it in a classroom. The conventions we used in this weeks workshop are as follows:
- Flashback – Acting a scene based in the past
- Flash forward – Acting a scene based in the future, usually after an even has happened
- Narration – Someone describes the story that is being acted out
- Mime – Acting without speaking
- Slow Motion – Acting a moment at reduced speeds
- Forum Theatre – When someone from the audience shouts out a suggestion or asks to swap places with an actor
For this weeks music workshop we talked about how to take care of our voices and looked at resources we could use for proper warm-ups so our voices don’t get damaged when singing. We also looked at this great resource called ‘ChoonBaboon’ which has warm-up exercises as well as short lessons which you can use to teach the children different songs. All on the songs were written by children in Scottish Primary Schools and these children also feature on the tracks too. We learnt a song called ‘Street Dancing Pirates’ which was really good and I can see children being really interested in it and having a great time. ChoonBaboon has a song called ‘The Unsinkable Ship’ which is all about the Titanic and when I was at my placement school on Thursday I suggested it to the substitute teacher and she thought it was a great idea to show the kids in he class. Unfortunately the children weren’t that enthusiastic about the song, but I have a theory behind that. One, it was the near the end of the day and they had just done their daily mile running and I suspect that they were really tired and ready to go home. I also think the song wasn’t greatly received because it was quite slow and I think the children found it quite boring. The class also isn’t taught music by the class teacher, there is a music specialist that comes in to do music with them and I think that the children thought that I was maybe stepping on his toes a little. I would like to the think that if I were to try it again with a more up-beat song the children would be more enthusiastic. You can find the ChoonBaboon songs on YouTube or if you buy it from them (around £25) you are given the full song lesson, the backing track with vocals, the backing track without vocals and a lyrics sheet as well so it’s well worth it!
