Integrated Arts: workshop – drama and dance.
Drama: This weeks Drama class was engaging and involved quite a bit of teamwork. This weeks lesson was all about using a stimuli to create different types of drama. This also showed me how I could use any type of story to create a drama stimulus. This weeks lesson showed me that Drama could be a fun lesson to teach and it was all up to the childs’ imagination with help from a teacher. Our stimuli for this session was a story called “The Tunnel” which was about a relationship between a brother and sister. After being read a few pages of the book, we worked in groups and used the drama technique of ‘role on the wall’ to decide not only how we seen the characters of the story, but how the characters see themselves. After this, we created a quick improvisation of what we thought was going to happen next in the story, and then each group gave a monologue from both sides (brother and sister). This lead us on to the discussion that any pupils can play any gender of characters which was perfectly acceptable. After this, we improvised a full group, what we think should happen now in the story. This was quite a daunting task as we had to stand up in front of everyone and create an ending to the story. Every group ended up with different ideas which was interesting as it showed me that a drama stimuli can end up creating so many different stories. I personally studied drama in high school so I knew a lot of the techniques being taught, however, it was a good lesson as a refresh as I had forgotten quite a bit. I definitely feel more confident in teaching a primary class drama as I have realised the freedom I have with this. I could easily connect my English lesson to drama by having pupils act out different parts of a story to keep the learning exciting and different. There is many ways drama can be incorporated across the curriculum and I think it’s an important subject as drama lets all pupils be creative and express themselves.
**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, 2004, p.66)

Dance: This weeks dance input was highly engaging and fun for all. We began by warming up our bodies by stretching. I thought this was very helpful as it gave me ideas on how I could teach my pupils to warm up. When we do this, we also discuss what we are stretching and how this helps us. This helps us as student teachers as we can pass the information on to our pupils. This week we rehearsed our group dance routine that we created using the 10 main elements to dance: turn, balance, twist, reach, roll, slide, gesture, hop, jump and kick. We then came together as a class and created 10 (0-9) more dance moves, but this time they were halloween themed. After we decided our class moves, we went back into our groups and completed a maths worksheet which the answers gave us a sequence of numbers from 0 to 9. This was a good lesson idea as it incorporated maths into our lesson, which gave it an extra element. This also could make maths fun for pupils as at the end of their maths questions, they would have a dance to perform. It was like a sense of achievement. We were given a picture as a stimulus, and created a movement. As a class, we then added all our moves together to create a short sequence. This showed us that any dance moves could join to form a dance that could keep to a beat. Tshudy (n,d.) states that “Dance is a different learning experience for them. It’s physical, and it gives the students sort of a mental break.” I agree with this statement as children have the freedom of movement in dance. Pupils can be themselves in dance, rather than having to try and achieve the best grades and get the correct answers in other subjects. To complete our drama input, we worked as a full class to create a dance to ‘Thriller’. We incorporated every groups individual routines into the dance to showcase our ideas.
**I can explore and choose movements to create and present dance, developing my skills and techniques.
EXA 2-08a** (Scottish Government, 2004, p.63)

Reflection
Drama: During the Drama workshops, my confidence is developing each week. Being allowed to get up and perform to peers improves self-confidence and gives a sense of pride to young people. I have developed my teamwork skills in drama as when working in groups, everyone needs to listen to each other and take onboard all ideas. Allowing all off the pupils ideas to be voiced is very important in Drama. Allowing other subjects to reinforce Drama, is a great idea in schools. Drama can be used in Topic work to visually show pupils, for example, a historic event. Using books can be helpful too as pupils can change the story to create their own. Teachers getting involved in Drama lessons will help engage pupils. Using techniques such as ‘vox-pop’ and ‘teacher in role’, teachers can ensure all pupils are engaging by asking questions to do with the drama created. Drama can be used to allow children to experience problem solving and it helps with a child’s information processing abilities. “Representation has a central role in cognitive development and it is through symbolic representation that children require the facility for abstract thought” (Duffy, 2006, p.10).

Dance: This workshop was fully related to the theme of Halloween. Having a theme helps with different ideas and can help create new dance moves. Another task involved getting maths answers, to then get a number sequence. After getting the number sequence, we could use the 10 key movements created to create a dance sequence. Using dance across the curriculum can help engage pupils, as it would be an interactive way of learning. Dance can also help calm pupils down, as I have seen on placement. My class teacher uses a website called ‘Go Noodle’, which has different songs and dances on it relating to topics such as maths and human bones. Then, a calm down song plays and the pupils listen to that and join in. The energetic song lets the children have a fun, jump around and then the calming song lets pupils know that it’s time to get back to work. A barrier to both Drama and Dance would be finding a space large enough to complete activities. Usually the Gym hall is used in schools for this, however, when it’s not available, classrooms can still be used with less movement occurring.

Link
The link for the workshops would be that the Arts can be used throughout different subjects. Drama showed us this through the use of a story, and Dance showed this through the use of Maths questions to discover a sequence for a dance.

References
Duffy, B. (2006) Supporting Creativitity and Imagination in the Early Years. Open University Press. Chapter 1.

Tshudy, E. (n,d.) In: George, M. (n,d.) The importance of Dance Programs in schools [online] Available: http://www.danceinforma.com/2015/12/02/importance-dance-programs-schools/ [Accessed: 20 December 2017]

Scottish Government. (2004) Curriculum for Excellence [online] Available: https://www.education.gov.scot/Documents/all-experiences-and-outcomes.pdf [Accessed: 18 December 2017]