Keep the beat: a music and interpretive dance lesson on practicum

At the last minute, my prac teacher asked me to plan and run a lesson on music and interpretive dance. Having at this stage not studied either of these strands of Creative And Performing Arts at uni, I was somewhat apprehensive, to say the least!

I planned a few options, in case some went belly up. The other constraint my prac teacher enforced was that the lesson was to be 'quiet'. I scratched my head wondering how to devise a 'quiet' music and dance lesson. Needless to say, the lesson was far from quiet and I ended up with quite a headache by the end of it!

CREATIVE ARTS LESSON PLAN

UNIT TITLE: Music and Dance			TIMING: Friday 13/9 (1:10-2:00) 50 mins
LESSON: Keep the beat		STAGE: 1 Year 2
RELATED LESSON OUTCOMES: Music: Repertoire - Student compositions, movement; Concepts – Duration, dynamics, structure MUS1.2 Explores, creates, selects and organises sound in simple structures MUS1.1 Sings, plays and moves to a range of music demonstrating awareness of musical concepts Dance: DAS1.2 Explores and selects movement using the elements of dance to express ideas, feelings or moods.		ASSESSMENT/EVIDENCE OF LEARNING: A student will: ·  Explore a range of sounds, beats and rhythms that can be produced by the body and the voice. ·  Accurately imitate the sounds, beats and rhythms created by others ·  Be attentive and repond appropriately to the conductor’s hand gestures to alter the volume and start / stop the sound as directed ·  Keep the beat to a range of songs with different tempos.
Before the lesson: Have students move chairs and tables aside to create more floor room. Have songs loaded ready on computer.
PART AND TIMING	TEACHING AND LEARNING STRATEGIES (HOW)			RESOURCES
Introduction (2 minutes)	1.     T enters classroom and sits on chair. Tell them we are going to experiment with beat – making and copying different sounds and beats, and moving to them in time. 2.     Explain that if Ss misbehave they will be given two warnings, and the third time they will have to sit alone at their desk and miss out. 3.     Instruct Ss to sit in circle
Activity 1 (10 minutes) Body percussion sounds in circle	1.     T makes a sound with body percussion. Ask all Ss to copy the sound. 2.     First student in the circle makes a sound and all Ss copy. Next student makes a different sound etc…. 3.     After one round, tell them that this time they need to make a sound, but that as T walks around the circle and taps a student at random on the head, only that student can copy the sound the lead student is making, everyone else must be silent.
Activity 2 (10 minutes)	1.     Keep Ss sitting in circle 2.     Tell Ss you will play a piece of music and make a beat. Watch me carefully as I will change the body percussion beat and sound throughout the song. 3.     Play J'y suis jamais allé song, performing different beats and sounds throughout. 4.     Play We’re going to be friends song, performing different beats and sounds throughout. 5.     Play funkytown, performing different beats and sounds throughout.			Computer with J'y suis jamais allé song loaded
Activity 3 (10 minutes) Soundscape	1.     Break students into groups of 3. Give them 1 minute to work out a sound or beat each group will make. 2.     Tell Ss that the teacher is the conductor. Every time the conductor points at one group, that group must make their sound. If the teacher points at two groups, both make their sound. Once the teacher stops pointing at a group, those Ss must be silent. 3.     Practice each group in turn, then try two groups, then try at random. 4.     Show Ss the signal for increasing volume and lowering volume. Conduct the soundscape again, signalling for groups to change volume and start/stop as conducted. 5.     Repeat with another sound.
Activity 4 (10 minutes) Clapping sticks and animals	1.     Have students sit on floor. Explain that I will clap a rhythm and call out an animal. Everyone has to move around like that animal, to the rhythm. I have to be able to tell what animal you are by how you move. You cannot make any sounds. 2.     Clap a rhythm with the clapping sticks. Have Ss move around the room depending on rhythm, pretending to be a mouse. Freeze. Tell Ss they are now tigers, and change the clapping rhythm to suit. Freeze, then try another animal etc: elephants, birds, fish, snakes.

An art and drama lesson sequence on practicum

My practicum took place in a Year 2 class at a primary school with a high concentration of students from Language Backgrounds Other Than English (LBOTE). On the Friday afternoon of my second week, I continued with a Creative And Performing Arts lesson I had begun the previous Friday afternoon. We were to finish decorating and assembling hats based on inspiration from a text: Tilly Tompkins Surprise Hat (Sadie & Suzanne Pascoe, 1987), and use the hats in a drama activity. With the teacher having a strong focus on English and Maths, she informed me the students have little opportunity for Creative And Performing Arts.

Given the student’s enthusiasm in the first lesson, asking me repeatedly throughout the week when they would finish their hats, I was feeling confident that this lesson would run smoothly. The students already understood the purpose and expectations involved in the lesson. Nevertheless, I predicted that the actual process of constructing the hats would be difficult. To assist the LBOTE students and provide both visual and verbal task instructions, I started the lesson by modelling how to cut the hat templates, writing the instructions on the board. I instructed students to raise their hand after cutting the hat templates and I would come around individually to help them assemble the hats. They set to work, and most finished cutting much quicker than I expected. All of a sudden I had 24 students raising their hands for help!

I decided to change game plan, showing the first few students how to assemble the hats and asking them to help others. As each student completed their hat they called out asking if they could help others too. I didn’t want every student out of their seat so I had to ask them to sit and be patient. They became noisy, restless and distracted the others. Meanwhile, my helpers were frantically running around answering pleas for help. I only had one sticky tape dispenser and needed to give each student six pieces each, so I had a line for people waiting on sticky tape. It was chaos and there was sticky tape carnage building up on the floors, desks and walls. I had it set in my head that I needed every student to have a completed hat, so forty minutes later I finally had (almost) everyone back on the floor, wearing their slightly skewed and misfitting hats.

Given the noise level from the hat assembly and the impending bell time, I changed my drama lesson structure from a whole-class carousel where partners rotated in a circle, to selecting two students at a time to embody their character and perform a scripted conversation in front of the class. This had its own limitations as students became shy, and we only got through a few sets of partners before the bell rang. Students groaned that it wasn’t fair that they missed out. They left the classroom and I was left to clean up a graveyard of sticky tape and failed hat constructions. After a whole week of building enthusiasm and expectations for the lesson, I felt like my poor logistical planning had let the students, the teacher and myself down.

CREATIVE ARTS LESSON PLAN

UNIT TITLE: Being Tilly Tompkins						TIMING: 2 x 40min lessons (1:10-2:00 Friday wk7 and wk8)
LESSON: 1/2					STAGE: 1 Year 2
RELATED LESSON OUTCOMES: Develop personal and social capability, critical and creative thinking. English: ·  EN1-1A (communicates with a range of people in informal and guided activities demonstrating interaction skills, and considers how own communication is adjusted in different situations); ·  EN1-10C (thinks imaginatively and creatively about familiar topics, ideas and texts when responding to and composing texts); ·  EN1-11D (responds to and composes a range of texts about familiar aspects of the world and their own experiences). Art: Objects (subject matter); Painting, Sculpture and 3D forms, Fibre ·  VAS1.1 (makes artworks in a particular way about experiences of real and imagined things) ·  VAS1.4 (begins to interpret the meaning of artworks, acknowledging the roles of artist and audience)					ASSESSMENT/EVIDENCE OF LEARNING: A student will: Use features of the written and illustrated text to design and make a hat, which could evoke a positive reaction from an audience. Students learn to: ·  make different kinds of artworks including paintings, drawings, sculptures, photographs, digital artworks and videos; ·  extend their skills in using a variety of media, techniques and tools to create effects that link to things in the world.
PART AND TIMING	SUBJECT MATTER (WHAT)	TEACHING AND LEARNING STRATEGIES (HOW)          STUDENTS                                                  TEACHER					RESOURCES
Before lesson	Prepare resources: Photocopy cardboard hat templates onto cardboard. Set up glue, scissors, paintbrushes, paint pallets and water. 2 material boxes per table, containing material and paper scraps and things to decorate with.
Introduction (5-10 minutes)	Linking to text (objects carry meaning and emotional response). Discussing characters and story. Explain task.	Ss sit in lines in front of smartboard. Ss participate in whole class discussion.	Read Tilly Tompkins to class (as some Ss are in different literacy class). Talk about Tilly Tompkins, and the patients at the hospital. Talk about the range of materials Tilly used in decorating hats. How did Tilly’s hats make people feel? How did they react? Explain task: We are going to make hats like Tilly’s. Think about the colours, the shape, the painting style and decorations. Remember your hat has to make people feel happy!! Search for hats on Google Images for inspiration. Show Ss my test hat. Distribute hat templates. Explain that they should paint and decorate the cardboard, and we’ll let it dry, cut it out and assemble it next week.  Explain Rules before moving to tables: - share resources - clean up after ourselves - wash paintbrushes - use quiet voices. - if you break the rules you miss out on play.				Text: Tilly Tompkins Surprise Hat, by Sadie and Suzanne Pascoe My test hat
Body (20-30 minutes)	Hat design and artmaking:	Ss design, paint and decorate hats individually	Teacher assists individual students in developing and refining ideas and techniques. Allow 20 mins to paint and 5 mins to clean up, setting work aside in wet area.				·  A4 cardboard (1sheet / student) ·  Stapler, sticky tape (teacher) ·  Scissors (share b/w 4) ·  Paint, coloured pencils, coloured paper, newspaper, glue ·  Things to decorate with
Conclusion (5 minutes)	Evaluation and linking to next lesson	Whole class discussion.	Who is happy with their hat design? Did it turn out like you wanted? How might people react when they see your hat? Tell Ss that next Friday afternoon we will cut and assemble our hats. Then we will play a game with the hats and find out how they make other people feel.				N/A
Lesson Evaluation: What worked for students ·  Did students show comprehension and empathy for the characters? ·  Did students participate in discussion, relating ideas to personal experiences? ·  Were students able to design a hat with appropriate audience in mind? ·  Did students consider audience reaction in choosing technique, form and materials? ·  Did students behave well according to rules agreed upon?				What worked for teacher? What to improve upon? ·  Did I communicate clearly to the class the task and what was expected of them? ·  Did I engage the students during discussion? ·  Did I encourage creative and higher order thinking during discussion? ·  Did I provide supportive and constructive individual advice and feedback? ·  Was the task appropriate to the age and ability of the students? ·  Did I allow enough time for activity, including setting up and packing up?

CREATIVE ARTS LESSON PLAN

UNIT TITLE: Being Tilly Tompkins					TIMING: 2 x 40min lessons (1:10-2:00 Friday wk7 and wk8)
LESSON: 2/2				STAGE: 1 Year 2
RELATED LESSON OUTCOMES: Develop personal and social capability, critical and creative thinking. English: ·  EN1-1A (communicates with a range of people in informal and guided activities demonstrating interaction skills, and considers how own communication is adjusted in different situations); ·  EN1-10C (thinks imaginatively and creatively about familiar topics, ideas and texts when responding to and composing texts); ·  EN1-11D (responds to and composes a range of texts about familiar aspects of the world and their own experiences). Art: Objects (subject matter); Painting, Sculpture and 3D forms, Fibre ·  VAS1.4 (begins to interpret the meaning of artworks, acknowledging the roles of artist and audience) Drama: Improvisation, Drama games ·  DRAS1.1 (takes on roles in drama to explore unfamiliar and imagined situations) ·  DRAS1.2 (conveys story, depicts events and expresses feelings by using the elements of drama and the expressive skills of movement and voice) ·  DRAS1.3 (Interacts collaboratively to communicate the action of the drama with others) ·  DRAS1.4 (Appreciates dramatic work during the making of their own drama and the drama of others)				ASSESSMENT/EVIDENCE OF LEARNING: A student will: While wearing the hat, improvise and embody the character of Tilly Tompkins. While not wearing the hat, embody the character of the sad boy. Students will appreciate the value of certain artwork features in evoking a response from an audience.
Before lesson: Set out scissors, glue, PVA, twist crayons and paper scraps in baskets on each table. Have sticky tape ready.
PART AND TIMING	SUBJECT MATTER (WHAT)	TEACHING AND LEARNING STRATEGIES (HOW)            STUDENTS                                                  TEACHER				RESOURCES
Introduction (5 minutes)	Recall last lesson. Explain task.	1.Ss enter classroom and sit in rows facing Ts chair. 2.Ss raise hand to participate in whole class discussion. 3. Ss move to desks quietly once they receive their hat.	1. T enters classroom and sits on Ts chair. 2. Explain that today we will finish decorating, then cut and assemble our hats. Then we will use these hats in a game. 3. I will give you a few minutes to finish colouring and decorating your hats. Then I will show you how to cut and piece them together. 4. Hand out hats one by one, instructing Ss to move to desk when they receive their hat.			Text: Tilly Tompkins Surprise Hat, by Sadie and Suzanne Pascoe My test hat
Body: Constructing hats (20 minutes) Becoming Tilly and the patients (20 minutes)	Complete hats Wear the hats and enrole the characters of Tilly / hospital patients.	1. Individuals complete their hats (constructing them and adding last decorations). 2. Ss fold arms when ready to cut and assemble. 3. Ss follow T modelling how to cut and assemble. 3. Ss move to floor wearing hat. 4. Ss volunteer to act as Tilly or patient in front of audience. 4. Ss form a carousel embodying role of Tilly or patient as directed. 5. Time permitting for real Tilly Tompkins game: Ss stand behind desk. Listen to questions asked by one of the 3 Ss and stand if the answer if yes, sit if the answer is NO.	1.  Ss put finishing touches on hats. Put your hat on the table and fold your arms when you are ready to cut and assemble the hats. 2. Tell Ss that those who are ready can take a pair of scissors and T models where to cut template. Once you have cut all your pieces, raise your hand and I will come around to help you stick the band together and attach the hat (with sticky tape). Once it is ready, put your hat on, tuck your chair in and sit on the floor quietly. 3. Once all Ss are sitting on floor, Ask “raise your hand if you can remember why Tilly made and wore her hats.” “How did they make people at the hospital feel?” This is why we made them bright and colourful. Explain that today we will become tilly Tompkins and the hospital patient. 4. Ask for 2 volunteers who are sitting silently. One wears hat and acts like Tilly. The other removes hat and acts like patient. You have 30 seconds to make the patient laugh, eg. saying “Hello, I’m Tilly Tompkins. Do you like my lovely hat?” / “I don’t care for your silly hats, can’t you see how sick I am?” (cough cough). Encourage them to face the audience, use facial expression and body language. If this works, form a carousel as per below. If it doesn’t work, continue to do this 2 at a time infront of audience. Carousel: Ask students to sit in a circle. Take each 2nd Ss hat’s off their heads and place aside. Ask those Ss to stand and form an inner circle. Ask outside circle to stand (still wearing hats). Those on the outside are Tilly. Those on the inside are the patients. Tilly Tompkins’, you have 30 seconds to make the patients happy. Patients, you need to act sick and sad. ·  Rotate around, then swap students from outer to inner circle so they experience both characters. ·  How many rotations depends on time. Time permitting, play a description game, asking questions to work out the real Tilly Tompkins. Instruct Ss to stand behind their chairs. Ask 3 well-behaved Ss stand outside door (put hats on desk). Rest of Ss stand at desks facing smartboard in rows, wearing hats. When 3 Ss leave the room, tap the real Tilly on the head. Instruct 3 Ss to re-enter room. Each takes turns asking a question about their hat to discern which hat is the real Tilly. If the T says the answer is YES, those with that feature stay standing. Those without that feature sit down. Eg. “is your hat decorated with paper bag?”,  “does Tilly’s hat have a purple pom-pom?”, “does Tilly’s hat have origami?”, “does Tilly’s hat have green on it?”. One of the 3 Ss can guess at any time who the real Tilly is.			·  sticky tape (teacher) ·  Scissors (share between 4)
Conclusion (5 minutes)	Evaluate the qualities of the hats and the drama improvisations in communicating and expressing the emotions of the characters.	After the game, Ss sit in rows on floor and raise hand to answer questions.	Instruct all Ss to sit in rows on floor. T sits on chair. Ask: How did the hats make you feel when wearing them? How did you feel as the sick patient? What was it about the hats that cheered you up?			N/A
Lesson Evaluation: What worked for students ·  Did students show comprehension and empathy for the characters? ·  Did students participate in discussion, relating ideas to personal experiences? ·  Were students able to design a hat with appropriate audience in mind? ·  Did students consider audience reaction in choosing technique, form and materials?				What worked for teacher? What to improve upon? ·  Did I communicate clearly to the class the task and what was expected of them? ·  Did I engage the students during discussion? ·  Did I encourage creative and higher order thinking during discussion? ·  Did I provide supportive and constructive individual advice and feedback? ·  Was the task appropriate to the age and ability of the students?

Drama 4: The art of storytelling

In the storytelling workshop, we learnt about the utility of storytelling as both a performance-based and English-based method. We warmed up with vocal tennis, verbally throwing words back and forth with our partner based on a given category. You could add a kinaesthetic element by miming a tennis game as partners exchange words. Although designed to practice different voice qualities, like volume, pitch and tone, it could link with vocabulary-building in another subject like science or HSIE. On my prac I learnt how teacher’s use their voice effectively and sparingly. I could create a mysterious atmosphere in the classroom by whispering, drawing the students in. Likewise I heard teachers using their voices like musical instruments, varying the pitch to keep students engaged and excited. I saw how tone in a voice carries emotion, more so than the actual words said. Vocal tennis could also be a useful exercise for those with EAL/D backgrounds, assisting their expression and confidence.

As a second warm up activity, we enrolled as design ‘experts’. To build descriptive skills, we had to describe an ordinary object in the room to our partner, but turn it into something newly invented and extraordinary. We started with basic visual descriptive qualities like colour, size and texture, and could branch out to deeper description, evoking the senses, through smell, sound, touch and taste. So a furry black box turned into ‘fur from the moss of the rocks which blooms at midnight’ etc… The role of the listener is introduced, as the listener must use eye contact and facial expressions to convey interest in the speaker.

We then moved onto storytelling, after an introduction about how characters are brought to life, first and third person, and narrative structure of attention, complication and development. Robyn described the key points in the story as being like the fishbones; the gaps between the bones being the parts we can embellish in the story. We used the text, 

The Selkie Woman & The Thoughtless Fisherman... A Very Old Tale Of The Seal People...

http://www.goodreads.com/story/show/260803-celtic-myths-the-selkie-woman-the-thoughtless-fisherman 

We retold this Selkie myth with a partner, including the bare bones but improvising the details and creative an alternative ending. Our partner would gesture and say ‘advance’ to move the plot along, and would gesture ‘detail’ to prompt the speaker to hone in on the details. This would be a fantastic way to orally sequence texts and encourage creative thinking. I found it interesting how the speaker brought their their personal values and experiences into their embellishments of the story.

Finally, we told our partner a story from our childhood, and performed it to the class as tandem storytellers. The class had to guess which person the story belonged to. It encouraged the listener to concentrate on the detail and mood, actively listening so they could recount an accurate and convincing retell. And it encouraged the class to actively listen and pick up on gesture, facial expression, voice quality and body language to discern who the real storyteller was. I think this would be a fantastic extension of ‘newstime’.

Visual arts on practicum

Visual arts was not a high priority in my practicum classroom, however there were a few artworks and activities which caught my attention. 

This was a nifty art lesson my Year 2 Prac teacher taught, as a means of explaining about primary versus secondary colours and the weaving technique.

Students drew five large circles on an A4 page, colouring them in oil pastels using either primary or secondary colours. Despite the teacher modeling it, students had difficulty getting the circle size right – a lesson in proportion (perhaps a cross-KLA link with geometry?)

Primary colour checkerboards

They then cut the page into strips. I pre-prepared black paper squares by folding them in half and ruling ten lines from the fold to 2cm from the edge. Students cut along the lines (carefully!) They then weaved the paper strips through the black paper, gluing the edges down. This was a mammoth effort as many did not have the fine motor coordination to weave without tearing the paper. The whole class fell silent as they concentrated on the task. Those who finished early helped others weave.

The final product was a vibrant checkerboard, particularly with the contrast against the black. I can’t wait to try this in my classroom!

Below are a collection of artworks hanging up in the classroom. The teacher aimed for uniformity, with each artwork process being highly structured and step-by-step to create the same result. I question how much individual expression was allowed in these works.

Broken bottle jigsaw

Negative image rubbings

Aboriginal story art

Fish paper plate