Music

We started today’s music workshop by talking about how important voice is to teachers. Teachers communicate and manage classroom by using their voices.  Our career relies on us being able to use our voices effectively.

During the workshop, we discussed about how factors such as being ill, losing voice and shouting on a regular basis can have an impact on our voices. We spoke about about important it is for teachers to manage our voices as it is the most important teaching tool.  shouting in the classroom can be avoided by finding other ways of getting the children’s attention. Example include clapping (and the children clap back), singing (and the children sing back), simply staring at the children and speaking in a quiet voice.

During placement, I have seen these methods being used (especially clapping which is seen to be very effective)

After the discussion, we looked at the resources provided by “Choonbaboon” which helped us to exercise our head, mouth and shoulders.

we then moved onto exercising our voices. We sang the songs “Doctor knickerbocker” and “Have you ever seen a penguin”. These songs can be used within the classroom to start off a music lesson. I enjoyed taking part in singing these songs and found it to be an extremely good method to start a lesson with.

Drama

In this week’s drama workshop, we looked at 4 conventions: flack back, flash forward, slow motion and narration

Andrew started the lesson by using the convention ‘Teacher in role’ and telling everyone the story about how he is a state agent who is wanting to sell a house where mysteries incidents had taken place. As a state agent, he is offering money to those who are willing to stay in the house to prove that there is nothing wrong happening in the house.

In groups, we were asked to  recreate a scene of what we thought had happened previously in that house. We took part in various drama activities such as this, using the four new conventions.

We also discussed about the importance of giving children some input to decide what they would like to learn about and ask how they are doing with what they are learning. Children can use drama to be someone else and giving them the opportunity to put themselves in another people’s position is important.

Dance

Dancing is an Art which I have always enjoyed and teaching dancing to children in a primary school is something I am looking forward to.

Since I missed last week’s dance workshop, I had a lot to catch upon. From this week’s workshop, I learned that dance can be easily created and that teachers do not need to know how to dance as the children can create moves themselves. From my peers, I learned the different moves they had created from last week to the following words: Turn, Kick, Jump, Hop, Gesture, Slide, Roll, Reach and Twist. I found it hard to remember all the moves and felt that if I was involved in creating the moves, I would have remembered them more easily.

The theme for this week’s dance workshop was Halloween and we took part in lots of Halloween games as a warm up activity. I found this useful as it can be used within classroom. After that, everyone split into their own groups and practised their dance moves from last week. We then performed our dances to the rest of the group. Afterwards, we created different dance moves for number 0 to 9. We then went back into our groups, choose a phone number from one person in the group and used our different dance moves to dance to the numbers of the phone number. In school, dance can be Incorporated into mathematics. This can be done by asking children to create moves for number 0 to 9 and then giving them sums to carry out. They can then dance according to the maths questions they have (this can be used for addition, subtraction, division and multiplication).

Before the workshop finished, every group was given different Halloween pictures and had been asked to create a move for that specific picture. Each group were involved in teaching the class their new moves. Each group then put all their moves together and performed a dance to the whole class. The final dance we performed included the moves created for the different words, the phone number and moves created from different Halloween pictures.

I feel that from this week’s dance workshop, I have improvised a lot of dance moves. Carrying out similar activities with children would be a very valuable experience for them. They will not only be creating their own dance moves but will also be involved in working with their peers which will enable them to develop skills such as listening, speaking and group work.

Drama

In this week’s Drama workshop, we learned new conventions (Role on the wall, VoxPop, Mime, Thought tracking and Voice in head) and carried out different activities to strengthen our understanding of these conventions. We used the story from the book “The Tunnel” to carry out our drama workshop. The story was about  a brother and a sister who were very different from each other. By carrying a drama lesson using a book like this, the children can talk about how they feel about the different characters within the book before and after doing the drama. From the workshop, I realised that carrying out a drama lesson using a book like this can be a very different experience for the children.  It is more structured which can be useful when trying to achieve a certain learning outcome. However, it is important to consider that  it is not always possible to predict how the lesson will turn out to be as the the structure of the lesson will all depend on how the learners engage with the drama.

Music

Today’s first workshop was music in which we learned to create music using the “Garage band” application on Mac. 

Our first task was to compose our own backing track using the app.

The music i composed is shown in the video above.

After completing this task, we were given the opportunity to pick a animation and create a soundtrack for it.

This is how my animation turned out to be.

This was my first time using a musical application like this and found it very useful. I would consider using this application within a classroom as it was very easy to use.

Visual arts

The 2nd workshop was just a followup from last week’s visual art’s workshop where we made our own prints.

This week, we photocopied our best prints and continued our piece of art.

I did not add any colour as I wanted my print to stand out from the rest of the lines. I liked knowing that I did not have to follow a specific rule, I could continue my drawing the way I wanted to. During the workshop, we also spoke about how important it is to continue an art lesson.

Lecture

In today’s lecture we spoke about how a painting should be discussed and explored within a classroom setting. We looked at artist Avril Paton’s  “Windowns of the west” . The painting has a tenement building at the west end of Glasgow. The residents of the building can be seen carrying out various activities. During the lecture, we discussed about how a painting like this can be linked into other curricular areas. For example, children can be asked to write a story about the different people living inside this building and what may have happened during the time this painting was painted. The painting can also be linked to a drama activity; Children can act out the roles of different individuals staying in this building and have a discussion what different residents are doing.

Visual arts

In the first workshop we did print making. This involved me choosing a part of the “Windows of the west” painting and drawing it in a polystyrene tile.

The steps that i took to create this work of art is shown below:

From a range of different colours, I chose the above papers to make print. I folded each of the above papers to make it into a card.  In a classroom setting, children should also get a variety of choices from which they can be creative.

To create our own unique art, we were firstly asked to choose a section of the building (as shown in the painting above)  to draw in a polystyrene tile. I chose to draw right section of the painting.

We were given the option to either trace or copy part of the painting which we preferred. I chose to copy instead of tracing it as i felt copying could make my piece of art more unique.

I then coloured my tile in red paint and put the tile in top of my card to transfer the design from my tile into my card. i did this for all four of my cards.

To further develop our prints, we were given the opportunity to add another colour onto our tiles and also add or take out any parts of our drawing.

 

The end result of this activity is shown in the above picture. The first three  prints were done with one paint whereas the last one was done with two.

Overall, I feel that from all the workshops I have  been involved in the integrated Arts module, this activity has been the  messiest. However. this was the first time i  was doing  print making and it has certainly been a good experience. Having taken part in this activity, I have now gained more experience, confidence and knowledge to carry out a print making experience within my own classroom. In schools, this activity can be done during a festive time and the cards can be sold to raise money for charities.

Drama

The second workshop was where we had our first input in drama. Taking part in drama allows children to be creative and be involved. Whilst in school, drama had never been a subject which i enjoyed and from the drama inputs we have in the integrated Arts module, I hope to gain more knowledge, interest and confidence to plan and implement a drama activity within a classroom.

During the workshop, We spoke about five drama conventions which are Freeze Frame,Teacher in Role, Hot seating,Thought Tunnel and Improvisation.  We focused on a story about a lonely dragon who are creating problems to the villagers.The students were playing the role of the villagers and the lecturer was involved in carrying out the role of the dragon. As the activity proceeded, we found out that the dragon was not a bad person and that it just wanted to be friends with the villagers.

Whilst doing a activity like this in schools, children can be asked many questions such as “how would you describe the dragon”, “why do you think people are afraid of the dragon?”. Although the teacher does not always need to have the main role within the drama (in this case the role of the dragon) the teacher should still have some control of the lesson and be able to get the children’s attention when he/she needs to.