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).