Week 7- Singing and Moving

Hello,
This week we sang! YAY! We sand everything from Absolutely everybody to  Shine your Way!

Absolutely Everybody:
First the Song:

After learning about the structure of a song (Verse 1, 2 etc, Chorus, Bridge, Coda Tag) We dove straight into singing as a group.First we started by listening to the song as a class, during with we then labelled reach section with the structure of the song. Then we sang it as a class!




Shine your Way:
First the Song:

This activity looked at harmonising as a group all together at first. Then we split into 2 groups one harmonising the verses and one group doing the chorus. 

Week 6- Music Concepts through listening and playing

This week we took a break from Vis Arts and moved into our 3 weeks of Music!
One of the topics covered in the lecture the importance of music and its need to be in the curriculum.
Reasons covered included:

• How meaning is constructed in our lives
• Provides opportunities to explore our values
• All the benefits from learning to read the language 
• Development of the whole person

These provides a clear need for having music as a part of the curriculum, however other reasons are present. In  an article for the Guardian (UK) from 2006 lists other reasons such as:

• "it improves children's health and wellbeing,"
• "Learning to play an instrument has a clear impact on improving intelligence" (Susan Hallam)
• "Music exerts a powerful impact on our lives and is as important for a well-rounded education as reading, writing and maths." (Susan Hallam)

So it seems that studying music leads to as higher developed child than we though. If it does help raise intelligence, help us explore who we are and increase our overall development then music is an integral part of a child's education!

Week 5- Intro to Vis Arts

Welcome to Visual Arts!!!!

In the first tutorial for Visual Arts we looked at names (because everybody has one!)

Here are some examples of our work:

But a great example of an activity is the 

Name Montage!

(Montage)

The idea is to get the children to describe themselves, using their name and different art techniques (as each letter of their name has to use a different style/technique). 

It is a great activity for a teacher to do. Not only does it allow the teacher to come to a better understanding of his/her students (as they get a peek into the likes, dislikes, background and personality) but also introduces children to the idea of using a wide variety of art forms in one piece (if they haven't already)

But overall it is just great fun!

As an example here is the one I completed for class:

Can you guess what each letter means?

Week 4- Drama & Literature

Drama and Literature have an amazing relationship. One of our assignments is based on this connection. But why is ring so true?

"Whether it is a picture book, poem, novel or piece of creative writing, 

quality literature can be successfully used to stimulate children's imagination and creativity."

Literature provides a basis for children to spring from. Creativity comes in all forums, some humans can  produce creative works from nothing. However others (myself included) can become creative when working off something, a stimuli. 

Activities that could extend from this idea includes re-telling stories- such as the Selkie Story. 

During the lecture Victoria told us the story of the Man and the Selkie (Seal Women)

A Selkie

Then  we had to retell the story to the person sitting next to us. However they could interrupt with 2 instructions. Detail, in which the story teller would stop and provide more of a description, or advance, and the story would continue.  

As we were telling the story we would make it our own- hence creating our own version of the story. even though we hadn't created something from scratch, we had created our own version as the children could. accommodating for those who's creativity needs stimuli.

And for the fun of it  ( and another activity idea!) our version of the Ning Nang Nong:

Week 3- Elements of Drama

The focus of this week has been the elements of drama, Which are

Role ,Focus,Tension,Symbol,Mood,Time and Contrast.  These are great fun to explore!

One activity we undertook during the tutorial was as a group create our own wild thing, using repeated body movements.

There in itself- a simple activity- we have explored role, tension, mood, symbol and focus, all in a meaningful task that relates back to a loveable text!

Week 2-Drama-Begnning in educational drama

The NSW Drama Curriculum consists of three main factors:

·      Making (“engage in devising, shaping and symbolically representing imaginative situations, ideas feelings, attitudes and beliefs.”),

·      Performing (“communicate their roles and imaginative ideas to others through voice and movement.”)

·      Appreciating (“describe, reflect and analyze their own drama work and that of others.”)

This seems fairly logical- it encompasses what I would think of the three main steps of doing a piece of drama.  That would be

·      Planning (Making)

·      Acting (Performing)

·      Evaluating (Appreciating)

In the Draft for the National Curriculum they simplify it to two main factors:

·      Making

·      Responding

 I like the idea that we are focusing on drawing out skills in other students, but is removing Performing as factor really helping. I know there are some children who don’t like performing, but in my mind performing is the heart of drama.

 Kids can get over there shyness. Or they can provide even a minimal role in the performance, such as only doing 1 line, or not talking at all. I know we haven’t lost it totally, but I find it disappointing that it has been taken out of focus.

On

Week 1- Is school killing creativity?

Hello Again,

So in the first lecture we watch a talks from Sir Ken Robinson about creativity and schools, named "Schools kill creativity".  He focus on how the current school structure and expectations have created a negative stigma around the creative arts.

Sir Robinson draws our attention to the fact that school subject structure creates a hierarchy of subjects.

This hierarchy can be explained when you observe into the purpose of schooling. If the purpose of school is to prepare the children for life in the outside world then this hierarchy works to an extent. The skills that will allow the children in the future to live and work, such as mathematics and communication,  then become the focus.  This means that skills such as dance, drama, music and arts are not considered vital, because they are needed less to survive in the outside world.  However more and more jobs are reqiuring us to be creative. Look at companies like Google and Apple. They are looking for people who are creative at heart. the whole world is is looking for creativity.

So what do we do to solve this? Easy! we implement the creative arts into other subjects. For example using music to teach maths, or drama to go through books. Not only does this provide a fun experience for all, it allows those who are tuned that way to truly embrace their education and their dreams.