Interesting journal article.

I came across a journal article which caught my eye as soon as I read the title, "Parents' goals, knowledge, practices, and needs regarding music education for their young children in South Korea'. The reason was probably because it contained the words 'music' and 'South Korea'. I was born in South Korea, never lived their but spent my whole primary school life with Korean parents and grandparents. However, when I started to read the article, I found the focus was not on 'Korea' but more on music itself, which is why I continued to read it. 

Youm (2013) states that music education is crucial for the development of children not only in the Creative Arts but within all areas. This is likely as music is a positive factor that enhances the emotional, social and cognitive development in children. However, primary school students are under the care of their parents and the music provided to these children is mostly not by choice, but by what is approved by their parents.

It is also stated that music can serve as an 'emotional bonding' activity in which the parent and the child grow a connection. I remember in primary school when I used to dread private piano lessons, but I still loved playing the piano at home. My favourite part of playing the piano would be when I would practice at home and grandfather would pop a chair next to me, watch me play and ask me to "teach" him. Although I was just learning the notes of the piano myself, at the age of five, I was teaching my grandfather all I learnt from these lessons. I think the only reason I continued to go for these lessons was so I could come home and 'teach'. This is where I grew a strong bond with my grandfather despite the fact that he was so strict and strong on discipline.

The article discusses that parents feel lost when teaching music to their children. I find that this is the way most M.Teach (Primary) pre-service teachers will feel if placed directly into a music classroom with a class of students all wanting to do something. The article continues by saying parents "seek direction wanting to do something good for their children but not knowing how" (Youm, 2013), I think this depicts my thoughts on teaching not only music but the whole Creative Arts stream. I love the Creative Arts, absolutely love music, drama, dance and visual arts. But before and during the unit of study 'EDMT5530 Creative Arts K-6', quite often I wondered, "Is it enough to love it?", "Does enjoying something mean I can teach it and teach it well?", "Will my students learn? If so, how? If not, why?". But then I think back to when i played the piano with my grandfather, I taught him what I knew and by doing this, I consolidated my knowledge and learnt even more than I knew. I think the underlying principles in teaching the creative arts can be quite similar. Although at the moment, I am still not 100% confident in going into a classroom and delivering an excellent lesson where all my students will be engaged and passionate about their learning, I have gained quite a steady knowledge of how to plan and where to look to be able to teach this KLA. This unit of study has really helped me learn about how to teach and why we need to teach the creative arts in primary school. I believe that with further practice, with further research and with further planning, I think I will be able to place myself in a position where I teach to learn and ultimately learn to teach the Creative Arts!


Youm, H.Y. (2013). Parents' goals, knowledge, practices, and needs regarding music education for their young children in South Korea. Journal of Research in Music Education, 61(3), 280-302.

Week 14, Dance.

Dance Workshop

This was our last class for our whole Creative Arts stream. I think I learnt the most useful teaching tips and strategies in this workshop. Working with stimuli.

Sometimes I think that myself as a teacher will constantly think about the importance of scaffolding and 'overdo it'. What I mean by this is that I will explain and describe a task within the Creative Arts lessons to an extent where the children will forget about their own, unique, creative creations and  will just follow and do what they 'think' I want them to do rather than express what they really want to do. I found that using a stimuli would be a great resource.

There were many stimuli including a photograph, a hidden object and a sculpture like model. I found that all three stimuli were an excellent springboard resource to base a sequence of lessons. However, I found that the hidden object was one I could and would definitely use in my lesson. Hidden object: Hide an object in a bag, ask students to feel the object and without having an actual visual stimulus, use the other senses, especially touch to represent the object. I feel that the students in any class would love this activity.

The structure of the lesson was the same for all groups with different stimuli. We had to

1. Create a dance routine using the stimuli as a springboard. 
2. Decide on a title, what we were representing and the music we wanted to use. 

Of course, due to the nature of our lessons, we were pushed for time and had to create movements within ten minutes, however in a real classroom, students will require more time and a flexible, creative activity like this could be extended into two lessons. 

Overall, the dance workshops have been very useful and engaging. Especially as I had no proper experience with dance, I was worried as to how I would teach it. I've learnt so much in these dance workshops and now, am quite eager to get an opportunity to 'try out' these teaching strategies!

Week 13, Music 2

Music Workshop (Wednesday)

Tillman (2001) states that the most important period for the development of musical abilities starts as early as kindergarten. In primary school, children should develop listening skills, to listen selectively, and enhance their attention to detail (Gooding & Standley, 2011). The workshop today focused on one of the most important factors when it comes to music - listening.

We listened to different pieces of music and discussed the five musical concepts. I thought that learning about the five musical concepts was very useful and important as although children will enjoy music nonetheless, if they understood the underlying concepts of music, it may trigger a spark of greater interest.

- Pitch: Notes being played.
- Duration: Rhythms, tempo, time signatures.
- Dynamics: How it is played, loud-soft. Creates the mood.
- Structure: Orchestra/solo. Placement of music, i.e. Verse and chorus in a song.
- Tone Colour: Which instruments plays the main melody, which are in the background. Types of sounds.

What we did was listen to a piece of music and analyse its features in terms of the five musical concepts. I thought that this was an excellent teaching activity to teach theory (Which can often be regarded as 'boring') in an interesting and engaging way. Asking children to memorise definitions does not help them develop a conceptual understanding. By asking them to listen and to discuss then to analyse and share gives them the opportunity to explore and further develop meaning in music.

Reference

• Gooding, L., & Standley, M. (2011). Musical development and learning characteristics of students: A compilation of key points from the research literature organised by age. Update: Applications of Research in Music Education, 30(1): 32-45.
• Tillman, K. (2001). Conference keynote musical development theories revisited. Music Education Research, 3: 227-242.

Week 13, Music.

Music Workshop (Monday)

Creating a 'soundscape' was the focus of the workshop today. When I head the word 'soundscape', I had no idea of what the word meant and I had no idea of what the workshop was to be about. Just as any teacher would, our teacher began to scaffold the lesson by asking us to write down thoughts that came to our minds whilst we listened to a piece of music. We were not given any other knowledge on the piece of music we had to listen to. I thought that this was a useful strategy as with children, although giving relevant information is important, providing them with too many details may reduce their creativity as they get worried to what is 'incorrect' and prefer to replicate the example or idea provided by the teacher. We were asked to create an image in our heads of what this music was expressing and telling us. Once we listened to the piece of music, we discussed with our peers about what we thought about it. I had written 'jungle' but we soon found out that the piece of music was called 'Rainforest'. 

In groups, we then got a piece of paper and began to draw our own soundscape plans. Our group selected the theme 'thunderstorms' and I drew our ideas on the page in a progressive form. 

Our story began with a person driving home on a cloudy and windy day. It starts to rain lightly and then more heavier as the person gets closer to home. The rain develops into a full thunderstorm and the person runs out to his house and slams the door. 

Once our soundscape, illustrated plan was complete, our group collected some percussion instruments and we started to play our instruments so that our story would be represented by our sounds. 

- Large drum: Moving fingers on the surface to represent driving car. Loud banding for thunder. 

- Shaker: Light rainfall

- Maracas: Heavy rainfall.

- Tambourine: Lightening 

- Two-tone block: Alternating sounds to represent running footsteps. 

- Claves: One loud sound to represent door slam. 

This type of lesson is great to develop collaboration and communication skills with children as they need to discuss, plan and create a soundscape as a group. I would love to use this workshop to base a future lesson on. Personally, I think this activity would work best over a couple of lessons with a higher age group (Stage 2 or 3). For the younger stages, I would adapt the activities a bit. Perhaps, Asking students to draw a comic strip that represents a piece of music they hear. 

We then, in the same groups as before, learnt to create a simple rap. It was to be four lines, not necessarily rhyming. This task made me remember my professional experience this semester, I was placed in a Stage 3 classroom and the children composed their own raps on the theme of saving energy. Children generally show interest in music even without having any experience listening or making it (Morehouse, 2013). Although they may not be confident at first, with an appropriate amount of scaffolding, I found that children would be engaged with a task like this. 

However, I had never thought about teaching students how to rap. I had never thought about teaching students to put emphasis on certain words and to keep with a beat. I had been ignorant to the basics of music in creating a rap. This lesson helped me learn that I need to take a couple steps back and really break down components of teaching and student understanding that I assume children may know. 

For our rap, we had a beat-boxer, two people rapping the four lines together, and the remaining helping to put emphasis on certain words. It was fun but quite embarrassing as our rap was not 'educational' at all. But, I can definitely see children enjoying a task as such and engaging in these types of activities. 

References

• Morehouse, P. (2013). The importance of music making in child development. YC Young Children. 68:4, 82-89.
• NSW DET. (2006). Creative Arts Syllabus. Sydney: Author. 

Week 13, Dance.

Dance workshop

In today's dance workshop, we used a picture book "Henry and Amy" by Stephen Michael King as a stimulus to dance. Henry is a character who is 'different' and does things in ways he doesn't intend to whereas Amy is quite a perfectionist. Before we did any activities using this picture book, once again we did a routine of warm up activities.

'Chinese Whispers'
I remember playing this game when I was a child, but from my memory, I remember it to be a game where music was played loudly in the background and in a circle, we would whisper a long sentence to the next person once and carry on until the last person would match their guess with the person who first said the sentence. The activity we did in this workshop was an adaptation of my childhood game. In groups of about seven students, we all stood in a straight line, the first person would yep the person in front of them and do a dance move, that person would remember the movement, tap the next person and try to represent the exact same movement until the last person would match what they've learnt with the original movement. This is an activity I will definitely try with my future class. It was fun, quick and easy to organise!

'Henry and Amy'
The activities we did with this picture book reminded me of how closely integrated the creative arts can truly be with other KLAs, especially English. To show understanding of the story and characters, you can represent it through movement! Our class split into four groups and were to represent through dance, either a character or a combination. I was in the group that was to represent Amy. We did short, sharp and straight movements in synchronisation with each other to show that Amy was a perfectionist. I thought that this type of activity will be enjoyed by children in a classroom. It gives them the opportunity to express their understanding through movement.

Week 12, Music.

Music Workshop

This week's music workshop was on singing. These days, it is quite difficult to find good and appropriate music that children enjoy (That is not Disney). We were introduced to a couple of suitable and fun resources to use with students in primary school. I think in the future, if I am given the opportunity to take responsibility over music in my classroom, it is important that I have a good list of resources that are usable with children.

The activity which I enjoyed most in this workshop was singing 'Wet Day Blues' with the class. Especially with younger students, using simple, repetitive songs are best. Also, a good teaching tip I learnt in this session is that we should try give various students specific parts of a song rather than getting the whole class to sing the whole song through together. For students to enjoy music, they need to have a personal interest and need to be engaged by it (Reid, 2006). Singing the whole song from start to end with the whole class is quite disengaging and students are more susceptible to 'zone out'. Also, music is not only about sharing to another audience, but it should also be about sharing with those who are performing together (Reid, 2006). By providing students different parts, they will be listening to each other, concentrating on the sound of others and their own which is a core part in sharing with each other.

To practice a part with harmonisation, it is important to let groups have sufficient time to practice so that they can sing their part without being confused by other parts when sung together. I learnt that if a song has catchy lyrics which you can put small dance movements to, the children will learn the lyrics faster as the movement recalls the lyrics to their memory!

Kenney (2011) outlines the 'Seven steps for developing successful singing and listening habits' which from a pre-service teacher's perspective, I found quite interesting.
- Step 1: Energise and align the body
Move the body so that one is 'activated'. Fix body into a tall posture. This is to prepare the body for singing and get them focused.
- Step 2: Love the breath
Sit or stand tall. Bring oxygen to each part of the body and enhance correct posture.
- Step 3: Play with the voice.
Imitate sounds, be expressive. Feel the vibrations of the voice in high and low pitches. Experiment and listen.
- Step 4: Sing one pitch.
Sing one pitch to another in a 'sliding motion'. Listening to and feeling the difference in pitch.
- Step 5: Sing two pitches.
Sing one pitch and progress to another. Enhance listening before imitating. Matching pitch.
- Step 6: Sing a short phrase.
Choose a simple song and sing a phrase, ensure to listen so that all pitch is correct. Listening and recalling the melody from memory.
- Step 7: Add words to the phrases.
Complicating the easy procedure. Enhances concentration. Combining different pitches, listening and matching pitches.

When I read this, I thought that it would be a good 'starting off point' for new primary school teachers that haven't had a singing-teaching experience. It is easy to make children repeat and copy everything you do, but I realised that to repeat, copy and imitate, students need to be able to listen and listen carefully to the changes that occur whilst singing.

Reference

• Reid, S. (2006). Introducing music to young children. A Fine FACTA, 7(1), 39-40.
• Kenney, S. (2011). Teaching young children how to sing: One school's experience. General Music Today, 24(2), 52-56.
• NSW DET. (2006). Creative Arts Syllabus K-6. Sydney: Author. 

Week 12, Dance.

Dance Workshop

I find that as much as theory is important for me to learn as a pre-service teacher, the stream of workshops this creative arts subject provides is very useful. Being able to take part in activities that I will be using in the future with my students, allows me to participate, evaluate and reflect on what works for me and how I would make it work with my own class. Today's dance worship focused on performing movement. As usual, we did some warm-up activities. For children, these warm-up activities are very important as they prepare their minds and bodies for the main content of the coming lesson.

Warm up activity: Chain-tag.
This is an activity that I was familiar with as I had used the chain-tag game as a skill application activity in one of my PDHPE Fundamental Movement Skill assessments. It is where children move around an allocated area and a starting chain (Two students linking arms) moves around and tags the free players. One tagged, students join the chain. When the chain links four students, they split into two chain pairs and continues until all students are in a chain. This activity is very inclusive as even though you are tagged, you still participate until the end. With dance, it is a great activity where students are given the opportunity to work collaboratively in their chains (Building on the element: Relationships) and working on space as well using different levels and forms of movement.

The main activity for this dance class was to dance to a routine from the musical Hairspray (Song: You can't stop the beat). The routine was practiced in small parts where six lines were made and we would follow the teacher's demonstration in time with the music. We practiced all together when the parts were 'learnt'. Unfortunately, our dance workshops are only one hour so everything was fast-paced but in a real classroom situation, we were told to spread this one lesson into a sequence of lessons so that the children would have enough time to explore, learn and apply. As dance is often linked with expression, we were given the opportunity to play a role of the characters in the actual musical (i.e. Geeks, too-cool-for-school). We had to think about how we would portray these character's trademarks so that an audience would recognise us by watching our movements. It was fun but I can already see how funny and embarrassing it will be to watch the recorded videos in next week's lecture!

Week 11, Dance 2

Dance Lecture

In this dance lecture we learnt that dance has two forms:
- Art form: To share with others, expressive, emotive using a variety of dimensions.
- Non-art form: For fun, fitness and socialising as at a celebration.

With this, there are six elements of dance:

- Action (What)
Locomotor: Moving from one location to another. (ie. Skipping, walking)
Non-locomotor: Moving without changing location. (ie. Crouching, stretching)

- Space (Where)
Where we move to and the area we use. (i.e. Levels, shape, direction)

- Time (When)
The duration and the speed of movement. (i.e. Fast, slow, sudden, use of beat and rhythm)

- Relationships (Who)
With who (Other people/environment) the movement is with. Including equipment and number of individuals/ groups.

- Dynamics (How)
How we use movement. Energy and control. (i.e. Long, sudden)

- Structure (Form)
How the movements are organised.

http://www.sydneyregionarts.nsw.edu.au/dance-programs/primary-dance-day/the-elements-of-dance

Percussion Instruments.

Percussion Instruments I couldn't name:

Rachet

Two-tone block

Hand Castanets

Claves

Guiro

• Percussion instruments produce sound by being struck. They help establish the rhythm of a musical piece along with melody and harmony.
• Percussion instruments can have a definite or tuned pitch (such as marimbas, chimes, triangles and xylophones) or indefinite or untuned pitch (such as drums, cymbals and castanets).
• In primary school students will compose music in 4/4 time, or tempo. 

http://www.schoolatoz.nsw.edu.au/homework-and-study/other-subjects-and-projects/the-arts/percussion-music

Week 11, Music.

Music Workshop

It is never too early to introduce music to children, and it is never too late to start (Reid, 2006).

This first music workshop reminded me of how much I really enjoyed music in primary school. I went to primary school in a country called Botswana in the Southern part of Africa. My primary school was very enthusiastic about music and I remember every week, I attended every single musical extra-curricular activity the school provided. Recorders, marimbas and choir. Then on my more 'flexible' afternoons I would have private piano, flute and violin lessons. Funny enough, I loved school activities but the private lessons I would dread. 

This got me thinking to the reason why I enjoyed school music but dislike private lessons. Now that I think about it, I believe that it was because at school I had more reasons to be engaged. I was given the opportunity to 'try things out' and always had friends who would giggle at silly mistakes but we would help each other when in need. Whereas the purpose of the private lessons were to complete the music grading examinations, nobody was there to have fun with and every mistake would be an extra round of practice for homework. This workshop gave me ideas on how to keep the class engaged so that my future students will enjoy music as much as I did. 

The main part of this workshop that I enjoyed the most was the part-by-part joint performance of Purcell Canon using various xylophones and met allophones. I think performance is about sharing and music itself is sharing as well. With a group, music needs to be played in synchronisation and this raises awareness of others and only if the proportions are equally played within the group, the sharing with another audience will go well (Reid, 2006).

Allocating small groups to a specific part of the whole song is a good strategy to ensure that all students try to perform as a whole group rather than trying to progress by themselves. This strategy ensures the children are listening to their own playing of instrument but as Reid (2006) states, their listening skills will be enhanced as they need to be aware of the rest of the class to make sure where to fit in a play their part. Working in small groups also allowed students who were more capable of playing to help those who were struggling. After the allocated parts had been practised, specific combinations of parts were to be practiced until the whole class could play their parts together and perform Purcell Canon.
With this idea, I am eager to try 'break down' pieces of music into parts to practice and perform together with my future class!

Reference

• Reid, S. (2006). Introducing music to young children. A Fine FACTA, 7(1): 39-40. 
• NSW DET. (2006). Creative Arts Syllabus K-6. Sydney: Author. 

Week 11, Dance.

Dance Workshop

This was our first dance workshop. My prior experience with dance at school? ZERO. I don't even remember doing any dance-like movements during primary school in our end of year productions. So I didn't have any negative or extremely positive feelings towards dance at all. 

During this weeks dance workshop, we did some warm-up activities: 

Roaming around the given space

Trying not to bump into each other, using the movement skill the teacher asked (i.e. skip, low movement). 

Follow the leader

Music was put on and to the beat we had to make our own movements in a line of five. Each movement had to be different and we had to swap when we were signalled to. 

These warm up activities are quick, fun and inclusive to all students. I found that with activities and games, it is important to give alternatives to 'elimination'. Elimination is an uncomfortable topic with children. They do not want to be eliminated which increases the likeliness of 'cheating' or 'competitiveness'. 

Following this, we were put in small groups to make a quick dance routine that integrated alphabet representation, high/low movements to music in a specific number of beat counts. I can see this type of activity working well in a primary classroom as small groups allows the 'shy students' to feel less intimidated and giving them specific dance movements to work on, gives them flexibility on what they want to do whilst developing their skills. 

During my professional experience at Homebush West Public School, I was lucky enough to be part of the school musical. Of course I didn't take a role in the musical itself, but as a prac-teacher for Stage 3, I observed many lessons in which the students made dance routines for the musical themselves. The children really enjoyed this time that was given to them. Nobody was disengaged and every single student wanted to participate. I think it was because they were given the freedom of choice to make their own dance moves, which gave them a sense of authority and responsibility.

Professional Experience 1

Homebush West Public School, 2013. 

Although it has already been four weeks since placements finished, I still feel that I should leave a note of memory in regards to my first professional experience. I was placed at Homebush West Public School in a Stage 3 classroom. 

First of all, when the time came to select schools and stages/years of preference for professional experience, I couldn't decide which school to select, so I did some 'research'. I looked up each of the schools on the list to read their website information, school newsletters and annual reports. As I have experience with ESL students, I was eager to go to a school with a high ESL population in which I could start to develop my own 'unique style' of pedagogy that was constantly emphasised in theory and especially to take my ESL teaching experience further. With this research done, I clicked on five different schools in which I was eager to start my placement at. Five different schools all in Early Stage 1/Stage 1 classrooms. Only to receive my 'Professional Experience Package" and email allocating me to a school, which first of all was not even on the list of schools given to us for selection but in a STAGE 3.... YEAR5/6 CLASSROOM. Despite the fact that I have been teaching mathematics and English to Stage 3 students for the past five years, I was devastated. I felt that a full class of "soon-to-be-high-schoolers" would be very intimidating and imagined them to be big and tall and disinterested... But, no. Not at all. They were not as big and scary as I had anticipated and I must say, I had an unforgettable professional experience and the most sad, last day of school. 

HWPS divide their classrooms by Stage and not by Year so when I was allocated to a Stage 3 classroom, the children were a mixed bunch of students from Year 5 and Year 6. During my pre-prac visit, I learnt that this school had a bit of a 'high school system' with their Stage 3s, in that they had a home class for a variety of subjects but for English and Mathematics, they split the students by Year and by Level. So, in the long-run I got to know and teach more than one class of students than most of my university peers on placement would have been teaching. I loved teaching the students in my classes, I loved learning from my cooperating teacher and being part of the "community and family" that HWPS emphasised with their students. The children were very responsive and incredibly engaged. They always wanted to participate and the "Who can tell me ....?" questions soon changed to "_____, can you tell me...." as whenever I spoked the word 'WHO', the whole class would throw their hands in the air wanting to contribute to the lesson. I was lucky to have a great supervising teacher, friendly staff and even more lucky that the children were so responsive and interested in everything I wanted to teach. There wasn't a single day I woke up wishing I didn't have to go to school even if the weather was way above thirty degrees or pouring rain. I learnt so much from this experience. Not only did I get  flexible chances to try out different lessons, I learnt about the in-and-out of school responsibilities of being a teacher. 

On the last day, my co-teachers started making bets on what time I would start crying... HAHA. I can't remember who won, but I started bawling my eyes out and it wasn't even 12pm. My students, although they were the 'cool' Stage 3s, the leaders of the school burst into tears at random times of the morning. How could I keep my tears in with these children sobbing away? Yes. It wasn't a pretty sight and my co-teachers and my supervising teacher mocked and laughed at me the whole day. I received so many touching letters, drawings and cards from the children and when I finally came home on that last day, I sat down to read all of them and felt very unsettled and was still quite emotional haha. I think I slept at least 20 hours straight that day and woke up feeling... tired. Those weeks of experience were amazing and even though it is 3 weeks back into uni now, I still think of the staff and children and still share the funny episodes that happened during prac with my friends.  

Something Special.

During my professional experience at Homebush West Public School, I came across a little stage 2 boy who had the cheekiest smile. Students who were 'in trouble' and had to see the principal and or associated teachers would sit in the corridors near the staffroom during lunch. On my first week, I didn't know this so I thought this little boy was looking for a teacher so I asked him who he was looking for and he said he's not looking for anybody, he was just in trouble... again. He grinned like it was nothing new so I told him to try and be good. During the four weeks at HWPS, when I walked towards the staffroom for lunch, I would see the student in that corridor at least once a week. I repeated myself every time, "Try to be good, okay?". So I've never actually had this student in my class, I didn't even know his name until the last week. But during my last week, his teacher told me he had something to give me, it was this picture. His teacher told me she was surprised that he kept to himself the whole lesson and concentrated in drawing the picture during art. I was surprised that this student, out of all the people he knew, just randomly decided to draw me a picture. It's amazing how just one smile, just one nod of appreciation and just one sentence of encouragement can brighten a child's day.

Something Special.

A while ago, I quit one of my part-time jobs working as an ESL teacher at a tuition centre. Whilst I was there, I did a intensive 2-hour session with two ESL girls, one had come to Australia about two years ago and the other a bit longer. They were in year 3 and they were always so excited to learn new things. When I told them I had to leave, they thought I was leaving to teach at another place but I told them it was because I had to study to become a better teacher. The girls wrote and brought me some farewell cards in the following, last lesson.

I was very proud when I got these cards, not because I got the cards but because of how much they wrote and how hard they tried to use the correct sentence structure we had been working on! Even more, we had been doing 'shape poetry' the previous lesson and one of the girls wrote me some shape poetry in the silhouette of... well... me. Despite the spelling errors, the improvement these girls made during the year I had them was immense. As a teacher, when you can see the improvement in your students, and when you see your students truly enjoying the process of learning something new, nothing is more precious than that.

Week 9, Visual Arts.

Visual Arts Workshop

This was our last visual arts workshop, and in this session our class shared our visual arts teaching opportunities that we had in our 4 week professional experience. Generally, everybody was given the opportunity to teach a visual arts lesson at their schools but there was a distinct split in those who had a positive experience, and those who did not. Lucky for me, I had a positive experience AND I was given the opportunity to teach 4 visual arts lessons. 

I was placed with a Stage 3 class at Homebush West Public School (HWPS)and this class loved their art. The classroom had two walls which were labelled "Gallery" and students could pin up their artworks to the wall whenever they wanted to. I had a look and there were some amazing drawings. Unfortunately, I didn't take a photograph of them as at the time I felt that they were personal possessions of the students and later I completely forgot to ask. However, I received many drawings from the students during this professional experience and I will upload them onto my blog in a later post. 

Lesson 1: Pictionary!

With my class, we had been focusing on adjectives as a language device during our English lessons so I thought it would be an amazing opportunity to deliver this lesson (taken from the idea in week 1). I got the students to sit in table groups of six and like we did in the visual arts workshop, I have each group one colour and A4 pieces of paper with alphabets written in the corners. Before we started, I re-capped our English lesson on adjectives and told the class that we would be drawing a representation of an adjective that described our family and community at HWPS. I showed them some examples I had made previously and the class was immediately engaged. I used the tips of emphasising no rewards but as we had been in the workshop, it didn't stop the children getting over-excited and eager to 'win'. I regret forgetting to take photos of the work samples, must remember next time!

Extension activities: Have doubles and or triples of each alphabet so the children that finish earlier can do another!

Lesson 2: Proportional portraits!

This lesson was observed by my tertiary mentor and besides that, I was nervous as to whether the children would enjoy drawing portraits and whether they would follow my instructions by will because they were interested not just because I was the 'teacher'. At the beginning of the lesson, I showed the class a picture of my portrait and told them this was what we were going to do today, and then showed them my cubist portrait to explain that this was an example of what we were aiming to finish in the following 3weeks. To my surprise, the children thought cubism was 'awesome' and they understood the principles of different perspectives and angles. The class followed my example (which I did on the whiteboard) to sketch out the proportional features of the face. Due to the short timeframe of the art lessons (45minutes), I ensured the children not to rush and that we would continue to complete them next week.

Here are some of my student's sketches started!

Lesson 3: Proportional portraits & cutting!

In this lesson, we re-capped what we were aiming to do (Cubist portraits) and continued with our sketching of proportional faces. As my students were stage 3, they had an eye for detail and as you can see below, some students even drew the fine lines under the eye and drew in eyelashes. 

Here are some of my student's completed portraits!

I was very impressed with what my students did, and they were very impressed themselves! After the portraits were complete, I asked the students to use a ruler to draw lines across the paper that would result in three pieces when cut. I demonstrated this on the board so that the children could have some ideas and after they checked with their table groups, they were allowed to cut their portraits into three pieces after they had written their name and two colours on the back of each piece-to-be. 

Lesson 4: Cubist portraits and more.

Unfortunately, my last lesson was on my last day of professional experience and during my art session slot, many of my students had to leave for that hour to complete other activities or go to PSSA. With the children that were left, i gave them the option of continuing with their cubist portraits or completing their "Get better soon" cards for a teacher from HWPS who was in hospital as I had about 10 new children from a different classroom in my class. Instead of using paint (Paint can get messy and is difficult to use and clean up in a short amount of time) the children used oil pastels, coloured pencils or wax crayons to colour the portraits in. They loved mixing different types of colouring-in materials and exploring the effects of smudging and scraping. But as many of the students were not present, the pieces were unable to be completed. One lucky portrait got all the pieces coloured in but the remaining, I left in two large folders as my supervising teacher said if he could, he would continue with them the following semester. 

I really enjoyed my professional experience and was extremely thankful that my supervising teacher was flexible with what I wanted to try out in my lessons. I was lucky that although I had to team-teach for other subjects, I was given the opportunity to 'fly solo' with the art lessons. I believe that the visual art workshops truly helped me gain ideas for these lessons and am glad that they went so well!

Week 9, Drama.

Drama Workshop

Storytelling was the focus point in our final drama workshop. As a warm-up activity, we did 'vocal-tennis'. This is where students 'throw' words to each other by experimenting with volume, pitch and tone. We did this activity using fruit and vegetables. Once we spoke out the common ones, I found that thinking on my feet was actually quite difficult! But it creates a great atmosphere for the following drama activities. Funny enough, during my professional experience at Homebush West Public School, I was given the opportunity to observe a kindergarten mathematics class. In this class, students participated in an activity called 'vocal-tennis' as well! But, the pairs had to count up in 2s (ie: Two! Four! Six! Eight!). At the time, I thought it was a useful activity to engage the students and get them to learn to skip count. What I didn't know, was that this idea was 'sneaked' out of drama!

My favourite part of this workshop was when we were put into pairs and asked to tell each other a personal (but appropriate) story from our past. Then as a pair, we would decide who's story we would deliver to the class. To deliver the story to the class, both individuals of the pair had to 'pretend' that the story was their own and the story's lines would be shared. We would add and expand on the details and it was quite fun. Children love telling stories, and I think this would be an excellent activity to use in the classroom, especially at the beginning of the year for the students to get to know their class members better. 

Week 3, Drama.

Drama Workshop

This workshop focused on Anthony Browne's picture book, "Voices in the Park". The text was simple and the illustrations supported the text nicely. This book could easily be used in primary classrooms of various ages cross-linking two KLAs (English and Drama). This workshop gave me many teaching tips and ideas.

Activity 1:
The book was read to us. There was focus on playing out different voices to suit the role of the character in the book. This was quite engaging for an adult audience so I felt that the use of different voices would definitely engage a classroom of students.
Two characters were drawn on the whiteboard and we were asked to write characteristics on post-notes then go up towards the board and stick in in the character's silhouette. We read through these characteristics together. For a primary classroom, this is a good activity that will ensure the students truly understand what the characters are like and this will be the solid foundation by which students will use to play the roles in the following activities.

Activity 2:
Freeze-frame. We split off into groups and with one person as the narrator, we moved into three different freeze-frames as the narrator delivered the story in one character's perspective. The part of the story did not actually have to be from a page in the book. This type of flexible activity is good in the primary classroom as it encourages imaginative thinking.

Activity 3:
Free role-play. In pairs, we had to play the role of either Smudge, who had to convince her new friend to play and the other person had to play the role of Charlie, Smudge's new friend who had to refuse or 'give in'. This role play was not scripted and allowed us to think for ourselves and deliver opinion.

Activity 4:
Conscience alley is an excellent activity in the classroom but often, it is difficult for the whole class to participate as a long line of thirty students wanting to speak out their idea will be time consuming and towards the end, many children will have overlapping thoughts. A new strategy was introduced to us where pairs would share their idea and speak out their best one. This activity supports classroom inclusivity and encourages collaborative thinking.

Activity 5:
Writing in role. We were then given time to write in the perspective of a 5th person that does not actually exist in the text of the storybook. This allows students to use their imagination and be creative.

Week 3, Visual Arts.

Visual Arts Workshop

This workshop we were introduced to a version of cubist portraits. We had to cut our portraits (from last week) into 4 pieces, write our names and two colours on the back of each piece and the class would share pieces and paint four pieces that was not their own.

I chose pink and blood orange. These are the pieces put together after they were painted by the class. There was some smudging on one of the pieces but it has it's unique abstract effect.

Teaching tip: Ensuring the students painted pieces that were not their own seemed like a good idea. There are always children who are more advanced in artistic skill than others and the children who have low confidence in visual arts are not eager to participate in class. By allowing different students to paint different pieces, each student will work hard on the pieces as firstly it is not theirs and secondly, they know somebody else is trying hard on their own. It also allows the appreciating of different perspectives which highlight the underlying factors of cubism.

Before I use this idea in my art lesson, I would have to explain cubism and ensure that the students understand that cutting a portrait into four pieces does not mean it is a cubist portrait!
Cubism: Displaying multiple viewpoints in one picture!

Week 2, Visual Arts.

Visual Arts Lecture

In the lecture today, I learnt that there are stages of visual art development in children. I didn't know this! I thought that as children grow up, the reason to why they could draw better lines and better pictures was because they adapt to gripping stationary and gain more control in how to use it. This is possibly and probably true but I didn't know that you could categorise children's artworks into stages. 

Stages of drawing (1): 

Scribble stage (Age 3-4): Children understand that they can make marks on paper using stationary.This stage is common in children who have a lack of experience in drawing and painting. 

Symbolism stage (Age 7-8): Children start to draw items that exist in life around them. They tend to start drawing things that are most important to them and the colours they use to portray their pictures usually match what they have 'learnt' about the real world (ie: Water will be blue no matter what!)

Realism stage (Age 10-11): Children start to draw with detail and start to develop a desire to draw realistically. 

Examples provided by uni.

Wilson's graphic principles: Why children draw the way they do!

1. Simplicity principle: The easiest, simplest way to draw. 
2. Perpendicular principle: Defying the laws of gravity, drawings that cannot actually exist in real life, the way it has been drawn. 
3. Territorial imperative principle: One can cut each item of the drawing without disturbing the whole picture. Each drawing on the page has it's own space and territory. 
4. Fill-the-format principle: Fill the complete page with drawings. ie: Hands will have an unlimited number of fingers just to fill the space. 
5. Conservation and multiple application principle: Repeated symbols in drawings. 
6. Draw everything principle: X-ray drawings! ie: Draw the inside and outside of everything. 
7. Plastic principles: Whatever is more important will be drawn bigger and more detailed, even though it may not be true to real life. 

All I could think of whilst looking at the examples was, "HOW CUTE!". So i decided to ask my parents if they kept any of my childhood pictures. This is one of them!

So this one was drawn back when I was in year one,  six years old! Apparently I brought this home after the first week back from school after the holidays. The topic was: Draw what you enjoyed most during your holidays. I think it was the first time I got on a train and obviously that must have blown my mind, because thats what I drew. A train ride! 

Symbolism stage. I would say that this picture demonstrates: Perpendicular principle (The train tracks going up into the sky), multiple application principle (Look at the passengers! All have same faces who look like my father despite the fact that even I was on this train, in Africa.) and plastic principle (The train takes up 70% of the paper!). 

Visual Arts Workshop

My beautiful friend and my semi-beautiful drawing.

We drew portraits in this workshop. Drawing human faces is rather difficult for me, I am still uncertain when it comes to drawing portraits so this workshop was good in that I could learn not only how to draw but how to teach to draw as well. We were given simple, short and easy-to-follow instructions on how to sketch the face and then we were given the opportunity to fix our portraits to resemble our opposite peer. It was fun and my partner and I laughed through the whole session as we gave each other 'facial reconstruction' with pencil and eraser. 

I learnt the steps to drawing a proportional face and will definitely practice! I can see this lesson in the primary classroom, I would probably give more time for younger students. I feel that this activity would most suit a stage 2 or stage 3 classroom where the children would certainly be in the symbolism stage progressing to the realism stage. 

1.  Matthews, J. (2003). Drawing and painting: Children and visual representation,  SAGE publications, London. 

Name montage.

Visual Arts Homework.

After the first visual arts workshop, we were given 'homework'. We were to make a name montage that represented us. My name is only five letters and there are many things that easily represent me, so it was quite hard choosing what to place where. But here it is!

Y

The four countries I've lived in. These places have built up who I am now!

Materials: Pen, colour pencils. 

U

I am obsessed with cosmetics! I love trying out new products, recommending the good ones and experimenting. 

Materials: Cosmetic packaging boxes. 

J

This is a J... not a G. In the shape of the treble clef because I have a passion for music! 

Materials: Polka dot plastic shopping bag. (Double meaning here haha)

I

People who know me will also know that I live on black jeans. I have so many pairs of different brands, cuts and detail but nobody except me really knows...

Materials: Black denim. 

N

Primary education and immunology, what I loved and what I love now!

Materials: Ink and stamps. 

Teaching idea: In the primary classroom, it is quite common that students have a name tag on their allocated tables or by their bag hooks or even on their school storage trays. Instead of printing out a boring name tag or getting the students to do the common 'colour in your name after you write it out in bubble writing', create this boring task into an awesome and fun art lesson!

Week 2, Drama.

Drama Workshop

We started this workshop with different warm-up activities. The first was a clapping activity in which the class got together in a large circle and we would send our clapping in certain directions (left or right). I was surprised as to how engaging this activity actually was, as at first, it sounded like an early stage 1 skills activity. It got the whole group settled and enhanced our ability to focus. I would use this warming up activity in my class as it is simple and can be used with all stages. 

In today's workshop, we did reader's theatre. Maybe it was because I went to primary school overseas, or maybe it was just my primary school that did not do this activity, the first time I came across the term 'reader's theatre' was last semester in English but this was the first time I actually took part in it. The class was split into three groups and was given about 15 minutes to read through and prepare how we would present our script, "The Ning, Nang, Nong". We had about 4 people in three rows. First row sitting, second row standing and last row standing on drama boxes. As I had initially thought reader's theatre was an activity for English to enhance fluency in reading, I had been oblivious in that reading out aloud and collaborating as a group were fundamental skills for drama! "... reader's theatre is the is an interpretive reading activity in which readers use their voices to bring characters to life."(1). By incorporating various types of stage, voice and movement, our 'production' of the ning, nang, nong was drama cross-linked with english as another KLA. I found this activity fun, engaging and inclusive. In the typical ESL classroom, students with low confidence in English have the tendency to back away from drama which requires delivery of memorised lines. But reader's theatre allows groups of students to say the same line, it does not necessarily have to memorised and hence, is a rather welcoming activity for all types of students. 

I assume that reader's theatre would be more challenging in kindergarten or high ESL classrooms as students may often have difficulty reading and understanding the text. To accommodate for these students, in my classroom, I would focus one or two English lessons in reading and deconstructing the text together as a class. I would show the students a sample video or read it out to them to give them a general glimpse of what the final production may look like. After I am certain the text has been understood and the class in comfortable with the text, i would incorporate this into drama lessons where students will have the opportunity to explore use of voice, tone, gestures and enhance their verbal delivery skills using their script. 

Reference:

(1) Martinez, M., Roser, N., & Strecker, S. (1999). "I never thought i could be a star": A reader's theatre ticket to fluency, The Reading Teacher, 52(4), 326-334.

Week 1, Drama.

Drama Workshop

I love watching movies, theatre and musicals as well. All of these are performance-related modes of drama. My only experience with drama myself would be back in my primary school years where I always took part of the school's end of year performances. As an outgoing and fearless child, drama was fun and performing in front of an audience was not that different to telling my parents what I'd learnt at school that day. But as I grew out of primary school, the outgoing child in me stayed but the fearless one developed a friend named minor stage-fright. I don't faint with nervous anxiety but I don't feel the pleasure in acting or singing in front of an audience I'm not 100% comfortable with. So when I saw that drama was part of the creative arts unit, I must admit, the nervous friend 'stage-fright' jumped on fearless. 

In the first drama workshop, as a warm-up activity we walked around the room making eye-contact with every person we walked past. Some of the students I knew well, some I didn't know at all. So surprise, surprise... making eye contact with "strangers" was uncomfortable and even though time passed it was still quite awkward. However, as a teaching strategy, this warm-up activity in a primary classroom where all the students would know each other, would be a good one to set the children into the focused mood you want them to be in. 

Topic: The Green Children. 

Activity 1: 

Read the excerpt from 'The Green Children' and generate a list of questions on what we would like to find out further about the story, the characters etc. 

  * It was interesting to see that overall, our class had focused mainly on the green children themselves and almost forgot about the other characters in the text (ie: Village people). 

Activity 2: 

In groups, we produced a freeze-frame (Also called still-scene/still-frame) of a section of the text and delivered one line of speech each in the voice of the character we wished to portray. 

Tip: 'Tap-in' the students and emphasise they are to say one sentence each. 

Tapping the students to 'life' allows the audience to hear each character at a time without overlapping conversation and if a line is in need of being repeated, we can tap the student again. By setting out that only one sentence is to be said, it gives each child an equal chance as the students who enjoy speaking out and the students who prefer to stay quiet will all have to participate and contribute in equal parts. 

Activity 3: 

Draw a map of the village in which the green children were found. 

The village map was to have the cave area where the green children were found, the main source of produce for the village and a threat to that source. 

Our group decided that our source would be beef and bread. Hence, we drew cows in the paddocks and a farm for wheat. Our village name was MOOCH and the threat to our community was a soon-to-be-coming McDonalds. We decided that our underlying secret of the town would be that the cows were actually modified dogs, and that only the people of high authority in our village knew this. (So MOOCH = MOO for cow + POOCH for dog). 

I thought that allowing the students to draw their own village was an excellent idea as it give the students the core element of 'possession' and 'authority' over their work. Hence, they will be more eager to and confident in speaking about their maps. In the primary classroom, it is common that when students are asked to present something that is not theirs, they feel as they are being tested and try to withdraw from speaking. 

I can definitely see myself adapting and using these activities with students in my class for all stages! Hopefully, in my upcoming professional experience I will be able to try them out. 

"Drama is life with the dull parts left out."-Alfred Hitchcock-

Week 1, Visual Arts.

Visual Arts Lecture.

The first thing we were asked in this lecture is "What is the creative arts?", and to this question, many students (Myself included) linked the answer to drawing and making things. However, as the lecture continued, I found that the creative arts also incorporated drama, dance and music. Combining music, drawing and dance? How exciting! I absolutely love watching theatre and musicals, adore exploring museums and galleries, enjoy doodling on paper and have a passion for listening to, playing and making music. How fun would this unit of study be! But then, I thought about WHY I was doing this UoS in the first place and then it struck me... Enjoying the creative arts experience would be quite different to teaching students about creative arts and then getting them to enjoy it as much as I do. Hopefully, I'll gain some confidence and break through the cloud of worries building up through this unit.

EDMT5530, be nice!

NSW K-6 Creative Arts: Visual arts, music, drama, dance. (1)

 "Creative arts is a non-threatening tool that children can relate to through drawing, painting, play, drama, music and many other modes as a means of self expression. The creative arts can be used as an alternative language, assisting children to get in touch with their feelings and begin to articulate how they feel." (2)

Visual Arts Workshop. 

This is as good as it gets.

As a child, I was never an extreme artist despite the fact that my aunt taught art and my mother was a fashion designer. BUT, as I said before, I enjoyed pencil on paper and more often than not, I thought my "scrawly-doodles" were quite... cute? 

In today's workshop, we participated in a modified-version of 'pictionary'. The theme was set as "Characteristics and features of an art teacher". Even though many of us in the class were not confident in our drawing skills, everybody was engaged and had so much fun! Now I imagine taking this activity into my classroom, how fun would it be for the kids?

There was emphasis in that there would be no rewards for the winning group, this is a great classroom management tip in that children tend to get rather competitive and despite their kind nature, the can't help but 'cheat to win' or get upset if they don't. Note that extrinsic motivation in the classroom is not recommended anyways as it doesn't benefit the learning of the students in the long run. Even though we were not primary school students and even thought there was no reward, due to our 'adult nature' we were still competitive and dived into guessing to win. 

My drawing: 'M' (Word: Marvellous), 

'Artwork' explanation: Marvel (Marvel heroes) + US (U.S flag)

PS. Our team... didn't win. 

Activity: Modified pictionary. 

• Form class into groups.
• Give each group a specific colour (This is the only colour the group can use to draw) * This makes it easy to identify groups at the end and makes it a challenge as well for students to try and portray their ideas in only one colour. 
• Hand out drawing paper with alphabet in corner. 
• Aim is to draw a picture that represents the theme, that starts with the alphabet on your paper's corner. 
• Guessing activity at the end, giving points to groups. 

References

1. NSW DET. (2006). Creative Arts K-6 Syllabus. Sydney: author.

2. Prior, K. (2005). Why creative arts with children? Parity, 18(9).

Alert: Blog 'newbie'

I have always thought about starting a blog but didn't know what to start blogging about and I didn't think I would be persistent enough to come back and continue posting after the first week. However, here I am, starting something new. A blog which I aim to keep up with what I've learnt, what I've taught and yes, as the title says, everything associated with learning to teach and teaching to learn. 

Initially, the idea of blogging came up in my first class of M.Teach (Primary) at the University of Sydney, where my tutor suggested that we keep a 'learning journal' that we would continue for the next couple of years (If not forever!) which did not actually have to be written in a notebook with pen. As I didn't think I would keep up with a blog, I started my learning journal on googledocs. And as expected, it started off with long journal entries in the first week and eventually progressing to dot-points. But surprisingly, the dot-points continued throughout the first semester and into the next! 

This semester, for a creative arts unit, we have to keep a 'reflective journal'. Once again, I started on googledocs but have decided, even though it is 10weeks into the semester, that I will try something new and start this blog. So, many posts in this blog will mainly focus on what i've learnt in the creative arts unit but I hope to include other KLAs and some reflections on my professional experience placements as well. 

To do: 

1. Learn how to use a blog.
2. Edit reflections and dot points on googledocs.
3. Copy-paste those reflections into this blog. 
4. Continue and actually do it. 

Yay! Wish me luck :)