Week 11: Music

Today we also began the art strand of music – this is in the form of a weekly 2-hour workshop. I was also super excited to begin this part of the course, I LOVE music! I thoroughly enjoy playing music; I played the piano and saxophone for the HSC and as of this year I have been teaching piano for 8 years. I have found teaching music to be such a rewarding experience; to watch my students improve week by week and develop a real appreciation and passion for music brings me such a great sense of joy. I also enjoy listening to music, whether it’s a CD of a favorite band of mine or turning on to my favourite radio station, smooth 95.3. Music, I believe, is so special. There are dozens and dozens of reasons why music is so important, and should be taught to our students from a young age. And that is why I am so excited to be doing this art strand; to be encouraged to ensure that music is taught at schools and to learn how we can be teaching this in the most effective manner.

The workshop began by watching a youtube video of a child prodigy – Jonathan. At 3 years of age, he exhibited a great musical talent in conducting. Below is a video of Jonathan conducting to the 4th movement of Beethoven’s 5th Symphony. In the first few seconds it appears to be just another cute kid waving his arms to a recording of a symphony. But before long, it is apparent that he is uniquely gifted – he is locked into the music, expressing himself with his full body, frowns, smiles, rolling of eyes. He glides from mood to mood, from being possessed to jumping with joy at Beethoven’s percussive blows and syncopations. It’s amazing! (I spent a good hour this afternoon watching many other video’s of Jonathan; he is now 6 years of age and has already conducted a symphony!)

Throughout our music workshop, we learnt the names of a variety of percussion instruments (e.g. tone block, cow bell, tambourine, bongos, etc) and attempted to create two different sounds with each of the instruments. We briefly examined the five musical concepts (pitch, dynamics, tone colour, structure, duration), before moving on to learning about note values. We then examined Vanessa Amorosi’s hit ‘Absolutely Everybody’, and broke the song up into intro/tag, verses, chorus, bridge, coda etc. To conclude the lesson, each student in our workshop were provided with a glockenspiel or xylophone and played ‘Purcell Canon’. It was absolutely beautiful! 

Whilst I was on professional experience, I had the opportunity to teach a music lesson on body percussion. Below is a copy of the lesson plan.

Body Percussion

- Music -

LESSON DATE:  Monday 9 September 2013

LESSON AIM: Students learn and appreciate the music that can be produced through ‘body percussion’, and produce their own rhythm in a small group. 

SYLLABUS OUTCOMES:

- [MUS3.2] Improvises, experiments, selects, combines and orders sound using musical concepts.

·      by responding to music through performing and organising sound activities and identifying features of this music

• understanding, appreciating and evaluating their own work and the work of others

LESSON OUTLINE:

RESOURCES	- IWB (Youtube)
Introduction 15 min	1. Introduce lesson: Body Percussion - What is body percussion? ·       Body percussion involves using the body creatively to generate percussive sounds. - Traditionally, there are four main body percussion sounds. What might they be? ·       Stomp: Stamping the feet against the floor or a resonant surface. ·       Slap: slapping either the left, right or both thighs with hands ·       Clapping hands together ·       Clicking fingers - What are some other possibilities for body percussion sounds? ·       E.g. hitting chest, clicking with the tongue against the roof of the mouth, etc
	2. Simon Says - Play Simon Says using body percussion sounds. Once the class has the hang of it, allow a student (who is engaged/actively participating) to take over and continue.
	3. Show class examples: 1.     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sb-2VsE2y-U - (stop at 1.15min) Ask students: What was good/effective about the rhythm they produced? (steady beat, etc) 2.     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3XBNvPLWMs - (start at 16sec) Tell class this is a performance. Ask students: What was good/effective about the rhythm they produced? (many layers, variety of sounds, etc)
Body 20 min	Activity: Make your own rhythm - Groups of maximum 5 students - Create a body percussion rhythm ·       Important to keep a steady beat (suggest four) à keeps it going/doesn't get awkward ·       Introducing the idea of layering* as an option ·       Inform students to use dynamics* where possible ·       Tell students that there is an opportunity to perform your groups rhythm to the class J  * define terms with students - Tell students that they can write/notate their rhythms if they can - Whilst observing/5min remaining, warn students to start rehearsing the whole rhythm
Conclusion 5-10 min	Performances - Ask students what they enjoyed about each group’s body percussion performance

ASSESSMENT:

- Observe: In groups, students create a rhythm using only body percussion.

To wrap up the first music entry for my blog, I thought I would share another child prodigy; Emily Bear. As a composer and pianist, she has played with orchestras in the U.S., Europe and Asia, at such venues as Carnegie Hall and the Hollywood Bowl. By the age of eight, she had composed more than 350 pieces. She is incredible - there are no limits to the musical heights that she can reach. Below is her first appearance of the Ellen Show back in 2007 (fast forward to 3min35sec for the performances).

Week 11: Dance

Today we began a new art strand: dance. I was excited for this part of the course; how could I not be?! I hoped that, like the other art strands, there would be a good balance between theory and practice, as I have found that immensely helpful for my own learning in the past. But I was also looking forward to this art strand because I quite enjoy dancing (although not terribly talented at it!). For over a decade I was part of a social, non-competitive dance school doing tap and jazz. I absolutely loved it, and hold many wonderful memories of those years. I was also involved with dance both at my primary and secondary schools, and those experiences were on the whole very positive too. Personally, these experiences alone provide such a great motivation for me to teach dance to my students in the future!

We began the lecture by firstly asking ourselves, What is Dance?

Dance is the art form in which rhythmic human movement becomes the medium for sensing, understanding, and communicating ideas, feelings, and experiences.

We then proceeded to view a series of dancing examples. My favourite by far was the Hyundai advertisement, which was performed by dancers behind a screen, creating a shadow. These dancers are in fact a Hungarian shadow theatre group called ‘Attraction’, and this year won ‘Britain's Got Talent’. I had already watched several of their performances on youtube prior to today’s lecture – I absolutely love their work. There is so much emotion in their performances, and I have often found myself drying my eyes after viewing them!

Below is their audition for 2013 ‘Britain's Got Talent’:

We then examined aspects of ‘dance education’ as well as what is expected in regards to the NSW Creative Arts syllabus.

Dance involves educating learners through the medium of movement*, which encompasses performing, creating/composing, and valuing/appreciating dance experiences.

[*elements of movement; space (where), time (when), dynamics (how), action (what), relationships (who) and structure (form)]

The following quote articulates what dance education encompasses:

“Dance education is a crucial component of a comprehensive education for all students. It is a movement art form that promotes learning to communicate and express ideas, feelings, perspectives, and concepts through kinesthetic modes of learning… Dance is for all students of all abilities; everyone can participate, create, learn, and experience the joy of dancing with others.” Cone, 2011.

The dance tutorial this week was fabulous (ps. I had broken out in a sweat by the end!) and the components served to be both fun and challenging. By the conclusion of the tutorial we had created two short dances (4 x 8 counts), and primary students would without a doubt enjoy the warm up and series of activities as much as we did. After my first week of this art strand, I am even more excited and encouraged to ensure that dance is taught at schools, or at least within my future classroom.

Week 9: Drama

This week’s drama lecture and workshop focused on Storytelling. I was looking forward to this for a special reason. My cooperating teacher from my professional experience had been to one of Victoria’s storytelling workshops in the past (for professional development) and she absolutely raved on about how fantastic it was! In fact, she was so inspired by what she had learnt and gained from the workshop that we began a storytelling unit with our class in my third week of professional experience. I count myself quite lucky to have seen and experienced the first few lessons of this storytelling unit in practice in the classroom; I was able to witness how wonderful it is and am 100% convinced that it has a great impact and benefit for students. When I am a qualified teacher, I will use storytelling in my drama sessions with my class, without a doubt!

I had the opportunity to run the second lesson to the Storytelling Unit – below is the lesson plan and the bare bones of the story which I told to the class.

Storytelling

- Lesson 2 -

LESSON AIM: Students develop a sense of growing confidence in drama. Students become more familiar with the concept of ‘storytelling’, and engage in a group activity of creating a storyboard of critical scenes from a story.

SYLLABUS OUTCOMES:

- [DRAS3.2] Interprets and conveys dramatic meaning by using the elements of drama and a range of movement and voice skills in a variety of drama forms.

- [DRAS3.4] Responds critically to a range of drama works and performance styles.

·       exploring traditions associated with different forms of drama (eg storytelling)

·       appreciating drama by viewing others’ performances and acknowledging how this can change their own drama practice

- [VAS3.2] Makes artworks for different audiences, assembling materials in a variety of ways.

- [EN3-5B] Discusses how language is used to achieve a widening range of purposes for a widening range of audiences and contexts

LESSON OUTLINE:

RESOURCES	- IWB - ‘Three Balls of Yarn’ : Story - A3 paper
Introduction 25 min	1)    Warm-up: Yes, let’s! - Have student’s stand in a circle. ·      1 - Student says ‘Let’s ____’ filling in what they want to do and acts this motion out. Everyone in the circle repeats “Yes, Let’s!” in unison and completes the action. ·      2 - Student says to another student, ‘Let’s ____’ filling in what they want to do and acts this motion. The other student replies ‘Yes, let’s!’ and also acts out the motion. This continues with the student asking another student, and so on…
	Recap last lesson: Storytelling - What are some features storytelling that make a story engaging for an audience?
	Set the scene - Provide background information to the story (i.e. setting - Persia)
	Storytelling - Teacher tells and performs the Persian tale - ‘Three Balls of Yarn’**
Body 25 min	Reflecting on story: Key Questions - Who were the characters in the story? How were they brought to life?  ACTIVITY - Establish the critical moments from the story, and write on IWB - Each table receives a ‘critical moment’. They are to capture the critical moment in an illustration on their story card. This will be part of a bigger storyboard, which is what the whole class is constructing together. - Inform students are to provide a caption for that scene of the story in written form
Conclusion 10 min	- Students retell the story together (in their groups) -> storyboard, animatedly reading their caption

ASSESSMENT:

Observe: Students actively participate in the drama warm up activity

Storyboard: Students cooperate to create a storyboard for a critical scene of a story

**BARE BONES – ‘THREE BALLS OF YARN’

•  Long ago, there lived in Persia a poor housewife named Mara. Each day she would go out looking for anything she could add to the meals she would cook for her husband and baby daughter, Leila.
• One day, she happened to wander into a palace garden. She spotted a rotten fig, went to take it, then a horrible witch appeared…
• Time passed, and life improved for Mara, her husband and their daughter (who grew up to be one of the most beautiful girl in all of Persia). One day, Leila was playing hide-and seek with her friends in the fields. She noticed a purple butterfly…
•  The witch kidnapped Leila. She was locked up in a tiny room, spent all day knitting and had little to eat. Seven years passed.
• Leila is forbidden to do three things: to open the chest under the stairs, look at herself in the mirror, or gaze out of the window. Leila is curious, as does the three things she is forbidden to do. She opens the chest and finds three balls of wool, then looks into the mirror…
•  Leila gazes out of the forbidden window; encounter with the prince.
• Leila and prince escape from the witch’s palace.
• Witch realises that Leila has made an escape, is furious, and sets off to catch her. When the witch is within an arms reach of her, Leila throws the green ball of wool. Suddenly, a green dense forest of thorny trees appears, and the witch gets caught up in it.
• The witch catches up. Leila tosses the blue ball behind her, and a vast blue ocean with waves appears, and sweeps the witch up.
• But the witch returns. Leila tosses the final red ball; it’s her last chance. A wall of red, blazing fire appeared and engulfed the witch.
• Leila and the prince are safe, and happily continue their journey to the prince’s kingdom, where they lived in peace for many, many joyful years.

I found the lecture and workshop with Victoria extremely helpful. I learnt more about the details behind the use of storytelling, and the nature of impact upon the listener. Victoria emphasised that the oral story is ‘unmediated by the written text’; it is ‘soft and malleable’ and ‘yields to the pleasures and needs of the audience’. One thing that stood out to me was that as the storyteller we must be aware of not providing an overload of detail in the story. It is the students’ role to explore their imagination as they listen. Apart from learning all about storytelling, Victoria taught us a series of drama activities that could be used in the classroom. One activity was ‘Vocal Tennis’ – an exercise to develop an awareness of voice (ie. its different qualities). We found this very fun as we practiced the activity, and I am sure students would find it even more fun!

I am sad that our drama lectures and workshops have come to an end, yet have found every single one so useful. I began the course rather anxious about teaching drama, but now, I am filled with a longing to jump into the classroom to teach and integrate drama whenever possible. I have a renewed appreciation for drama, and most definitely realise its significance within the classroom.

Week 9: Art

Today’s tutorial was spent listening to our fellow classmates share their experience of an art lesson from their professional experience. I was astounded when somebody mentioned that their school only offered art in Semester 1 and thus did not have the experience to watch or teach an art lesson. Another student stated that their class did art of Friday afternoons because half the class would be out at PSSA. I was both shocked and appalled to hear such accounts; it appears that art is very much a neglected subject in some classrooms, where its value is not highly regarded in comparison to other subjects.

I completed my professional experience at Curl Curl North Public School with a Stage 3 (year 5) class. This school places a strong emphasis upon the arts, and thus I had a wonderfully positive experience of art. Art was deeply appreciated by the students in the classroom, and my cooperating teacher ensured that an art lesson was delivered at least once per week. In my second week of professional experience, I was provided with the opportunity to teach an art lesson, and had the freedom to teach whatever I pleased. I decided to teach the students about Van Gogh and his beautiful (& well-known) ‘Sunflower’ works. Below is a practice artwork of what I planned to teach the students, as well as the lesson plan, and a reflection upon how it went.

Van Gogh’s Sunflowers

- Art -

LESSON AIM: Students will become acquainted with artist Vincent Van Gogh and create expressionistic sunflowers using a combination of techniques (drawing, tracing with oil pastels and wash-over with watercolours).

SYLLABUS OUTCOMES:

- Investigates subject matter in an attempt to represent likenesses of things in the world. [VAS3.1]

- Acknowledges that audiences respond in different ways to artworks and that there are different opinions about the value of artworks. [VAS3.3]

- Uses an integrated range of skills, strategies and knowledge to read, view and comprehend a wide range of texts in different media and technologies [EN3-3A]

LESSON OUTLINE:

RESOURCES	- Fresh Sunflowers! - “Camille and the Sunflowers: A Story About Vincent Van Gogh” by Laurence Anholt - IWB/ Van Gogh Sunflowers PowerPoint - Amy’s step-by-step examples - 30 x white art paper (A4) - Pencils - Oil Pastels - Water colour paints - Paint brushes - Newspaper/art smocks - Don McLean's song Vincent (Starry, Starry Night)
Introduction 20 min	1)     Settle class on floor - Introduce lesson via PowerPoint: ·       Vincent Van Gogh, an Impressionist painter, painted in the 1880s in Europe. ·       Today, his works are very well known; he used unusual colours to paint portraits, flowers, and landscapes Key Questions to ASK: ·       Are his works bright or dull? (Why?) ·       What catches your attention in his individual works? (e.g. large shapes, textual effects) 2)     *READ “Camille and the Sunflowers: A Story About Vincent Van Gogh” ·       ASK: From reading that story, what do we now know about Vincent Van Gogh?
Body 40 min	SUNFLOWER Art - (have Van Gogh’s Sunflower’s enlarged on IWB; bring out fresh sunflowers) - September means the beginning of spring.. Springtime is the time when flowers blossom. So today we are going to do the art of Van Gogh’s Sunflower’s! - List the materials: paper, pencils, oil pastels and water colours (& paint brushes!) Instructions: (ask a student to read from IWB) 1) Write name on the back of paper. 2) Rough sketch with a pencil. Big vase (just below the bottom half of the page, line through the middle), combination of different shapes of flowers. 3) Go over it with oil pastels. Use a variety of colours. Press hard. Don't colour in! 4) Go over with watercolour paints. Like a wash over. Use plenty of water. * Post stage-by-stage examples after each instruction - Remind students that Van Gogh signed his works on the vase, so students are to do the same with their own name. (This is the last thing that they do) - WARNING: don't go back on steps. E.g. don't start watercolour, but then decide to do some more oil pastel work... nono! - Ask students to repeat the instructions back (hands up) - Send students back to seats one table at a time. - If students are on-task, play Don McLean's song Vincent (Starry, Starry Night) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dipFMJckZOM)
Conclusion 10 min	- Clean up/pack away (use ‘mystery lucky spots’ to encourage cleaning) Reflection (if time permits) - What is the importance of art? (-> how is it a way of expressing oneself?)

 ASSESSMENT:

- Final product: Students create a work of art that resembles a bunch of flowers in a vase.

Reflection:

Today I taught my first art lesson, and I was so excited! I opened the lesson by introducing Van Gogh, and asked students what they knew about him already (and they appeared to know a fair bit… I was blown away! Shows that some teachers from earlier grades have taught Van Gogh, which is great!). Before reading the picture book, I asked students to predict the story by viewing the front cover. It is a nice, engaging story, so students listened very well. After the reading, we reflected and discussed what we learnt about Vincent Van Gogh from the story. We then examined some other works of Van Gogh, and discussed what some of the qualities were (e.g. expression, texture, etc). This was followed by a detailed explanation of the art activity. I had the steps on another slide (on IWB) as well as pre-organized demonstrations of each stage. This was to show students what was expected of them. Students quietly returned to their chairs table by table.

Throughout the lesson, I walked around the desks to give tips to students, but mainly to encourage them to work faster, as we were short for time. Unfortunately, students only had 30min to complete the Van Gogh activity – not long at all! As students worked well, I played ‘Starry, Starry Night’ in the background, a song about Van Gogh. I thought this added a nice tone to the lesson. Overall, I was very impressed by what the students achieved in such a limited time frame; every student was done by 3pm.

All students followed the standard clean-up procedure, and wow, they were efficient at it! Within five minutes the room was spotless! Although I had a plan of having ‘mystery lucky spots’ to encourage cleaning, this was not necessary. As a conclusion to the lesson, students were brought back to the floor and we discussed the reflection question together.

The next morning, I stuck the students’ paintings on the windows (it looks quite nice with the light shining behind it!)