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.