8th of October 2016
Drama
Throughout this session we participated in a micro-teaching task of a story book of our own choice. We worked in groups of five and presented our books to the class, as well as follow up activities that we could potentially carry out with a group of children/whole class, in a primary education setting.
The book that my group and I had chosen was called ‘The Gingerbread Man’ by Jim Aylesworth in 1988. This is a classic book for children that is well known to this day. The story is exciting and builds up to a peak ending for the children, generating eagerness to know what happens to the gingerbread man.
We presented to the class and read them the book aloud. We drew our classmates closer to us whilst reading to ensure that they would be focused on the story and were engaging with us. This is very important to do with children as if they were just sitting at their desks they can potentially become distracted and lose focus. However, if they are close to us when we are reading, they become more engaged and are more likely to become involved with the story. There are many techniques that we can use to draw children into a story, I found this resource particularly useful: Click Here!
As a group we depicted different drama conventions to focus on for the last 4 pages of the book. This is the pages here:
Voices in the Head: When you hear what a character is thinking and feeling. With opposing voices being heard from the one character.
Thought Tunnel: A double line of children who speak the thoughts and feelings of the character who is walking between the double lines.
Hot Seating: A child or an adult sits in the ‘Hot Seat’ becoming a character who is related to the drama. The rest of the class ask that character questions.
References
The Play House. (2016) Using Drama- Tapestry. [Online] Available at: http://theplayhouse.org.uk/tapestry/category/using-drama/
[Accessed: 08/11/2016]
Aylesworth, J. (1988) The Gingerbread Man. Scholastic Press.
Music
Today we explored creating music using technology. The application that we used was called GarageBand. Garage band is an interactive software where you can make music by creating loops with different instruments using a variety of instruments.
Loop Button
The software allows you to add layers to your music and create intricate beats and rhymes. There is a huge variety of instruments available from bass, drum kits, guitars, piano to synthesisers.
You are able to see where the sound waves are and control how long you want your piece of music to last for e.g. Eight beats.There is an indicator that goes along the pieces of music that shows you which pieces of music is playing.
During the session we created our own 8 beat piece of music using the features available to layer music together and make new sounds.
There are many special features which allows you to control the music.
- Whilst listing through headphone If you want a sound to come out the left headphone but not the right you are able to change that.
- You are able to record your own voice and incorporate that into the track and alter the volume of the music to fit.
- You can alter your music to fade in and out of the track to add dimension.
- You can add sound affects to your music and adapt them to short videos using the software.
This is a very interactive and creative tool for children to really explore the possibilities of music and experiment with the different features that the software has. Here is a video of a group of children from Clydebank High School explaining how they feel about using technology in music.
We then put together a piece of music to an animation which had no sounds. Within the software there was ‘sound effects’ button that was perfect for this activity. This is how my final piece turned out.
For future practice it was highlighted to us that we could use these websites that allow children to be creative with music and technology:
References
Great Schools Staff, 2016. Five ways to help your Child Focus. [Online] Available at: http://www.greatschools.org/gk/articles/helping-kids-focus/
[Accessed: 08/11/2016]
BBC, 2016. The Elements of Drama. [Online] Available at:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/drama/drama_wjec/devisedperformance/taskone4.shtml
[Accessed: 08/11/2016]
Education Scotland, 2016. Introducing Music Technology 1: Benefits. [Online] Available at: http://www.educationscotland.gov.uk/video/i/video_tcm4690757.asp
[Accessed: 08/11/2016]
