WEEK 12 – Tuesday 26th November 2019
THE LAST WEEK! I’ll admit…the module was better than I expected. As I mentioned in my introduction blog, I was nervous for this module as I don’t have much experience working with the arts. However, after the 12 weeks, I feel so much more confident and look forward to teaching them.
Our last dance workshop consisted of us performing our final piece and having it recorded. The final dance consisted of the routines we had previously made in our small groups and the piece of choreography in the middle. This experience has highlighted to me how important it is that children are given the opportunity to be creative. Within dance, there is very limited need for the input of the teacher. Children are able to use their imagination and experiences to come up with their own choreography. Before we performed, we discussed how important it is that all children are included. For example, some children may not be able to perform due to anxiety or injury, however, it is important that they children are given other jobs to do that include them in the experience. After we performed and were recorded, we went back to the benchmark of children having to “Perform, appreciate and evaluate dance”, we had performed so now we had to appreciate and evaluate our dance. We had to give ourselves 3 stars and a wish, mine were:
STAR – Timing, I was able to stay in time with my group when performing
STAR – Memory, I was able to remember the dance
STAR – Focus, I was able to stay focused and not get distracted by my peers
WISH – Confidence, I looked down a lot, I wish I was more confident in myself and able to stand tall and perform
We got a treat for our last music workshop and were allowed to work with the Ukuleles. We began by learning how to strum the ukulele, before playing a song called ‘my dog has fleas’, apparently, this is a good song to play to tell if the ukulele is in tune or not. I have some previous experience of playing the guitar at school, so I wasn’t too nervous about this. I really enjoyed this experience and think it would be something that is easy to teach pupils in the future. It seems intimidating but isn’t when you take the time to understand it, therefore, I think it would give children a great sense of achievement.
This was a great end to our time in music, I’ve loved working with various different instruments with the help of Julie, I especially enjoyed our workshop with the primary school pupils. This gave me an insight on what teaching music will be like in the future.
I’m looking forward to putting everything I’ve learned about expressive arts into practice in the future, to encourage children to be creative imaginative individuals.
