Music
In today’s class we were learning how to play ukulele. We began with learning about the ukulele itself such as what every part is called, and what notes the strings hold.
Once we had become familiar with the notes we began to learn the most common chords used for Christmas songs. We began with the easiest ones, Cmajor and Aminor, and then moved onto more advanced chords such Dmajor and Gmajor. I struggled quite a lot and kept putting this down to the fact I have no nails, so when playing I strum using my fingers. However, the more I got used to it I realised that you don’t need nails, your fingers just become more resistant to the discomfort. By not giving up children will learn that perseverance leads to a positive outcome and some children need reminded of this. A good example is learning to walk, although they won’t remember it, at the time they will have struggled a lot, but now because of persistency, practice and repetition they can walk because they were persistent (A. Lemind 2012). After we learned the chords we began looking at Christmas songs. We played 3 and although when we worked on our own we struggled, it wasn’t evident when the whole class played. The better performers covered up the ones who struggled, which gave me a lot of comfort and I know would give children peace of mind if they do not feel confident. I enjoyed this class as it was practical and hands on, and in future I would like to revisit the ukulele to become more comfortable with it for use in my classroom, as I know it is a popular instrument.
Art
Today’s art class was an alternative approach to learning about Art which I found very intriguing. We looked at pictures and used Rod Taylor’s model of: Process, Form, Content and Mood to analyse the picture. We worked in pairs while we looked at the picture and chose a series of questions, from the model, to ask to ask our partner. We then video recorded our partners answering the questions and showed the image we had chosen. Analysing the image on video was a lot more effective than in writing as the image was there, so no description was needed. A lot of the time, words are better said than written and I believe that this was a good example of this. This task would be very entertaining for children as they learn about art while using technology to display it. Art now has been given a new meaning of life, more art forms can now be made through the use of technology such as 3D art and digital printing (Gever.E 2012). Teaching children about art is important but immersing it with the use of technology allows children who are not good art hand-drawn art to be artists of their own generation.
This Link will take you to a video of me analysing a piece of art –
https://www.dropbox.com/s/o9f0037ll6tqz05/video-1450790348.mp4.mp4?dl=0
Lemind, A. (2012) Self-importance; Self Success. Available online at: http://www.learning-mind.com/perseverance-in-achieving-success/ last accessed 01/12/2015
Gever, E. (2012) Technology and Art: Engineering the Future. Available online at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-19576763 last accessed 01/12/2-15
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