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Amna Matar

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Reflective journal of my preforming arts lesson

In this reflective journal, I will talk about my performing arts lesson (the zoo).
First, I will evaluate the planning of the project, then I will explain how the roles
are assigned, the resources, and the prosses of practicing and performing it in
front of an audience, there will also be some pictures of the lesson for
clarification. Then I will talk about the difficulties a faced and how have I
overcome them, also I will give some suggestion for extension activities. Finally,
I will list the references.

My performing arts lesson was with class KG2F, In ISCS school.


I had specific aims/learning outcomes in the lesson plan. It is in the following
points:
- They will develop their recalling (memory) skills.
- The children will be able to build their fine and gross motor skills.
During the whole class activity/in the introduction, students have achieved those
two learning outcomes because they watched the video and observed me
performing in front of them after that they copied me and tried to recall the
movements I did. Also, when they are doing those movements, they will work on
developing their fine and gross motor skills; they might be experiencing some
new movements.
While in the group's activity the aims were:
- The students will develop physically (They will learn the difference between
the slow and fast movement).
- The students will be able to develop socially and emotionally during the
teamwork.
- They will learn new words like: clap, wag, tail, thump, chest, bend, knees,
and wiggle.
The students did understand the aspect of fast and slow movements.
Also, During the teamwork, Maitha shared with her peers that she has fear from
dogs, which showed me that they are on the prosses of develop ing socially and
emotionally.

The aspects of drama, music, and movement to be explored in the lesson are
mentioned in the following points.
First, the aspect of drama being addressed are:
- Working cooperatively in a group; being courteous to others; sharing
materials; taking turns.
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- Feeling confident in their ability as learners, having the courage to take


risks, applying what they have learned and making appropriate decisions
and choices.
- Being creative and imaginative in their thinking and in their approach to
problems and dilemmas. (Children will create their own moves to imitate
animals.)
The students were working cooperatively with each other, I have noticed when
it’s the turn of the other group to be leading the other students were making
space for the groups to pass to the front, and even remind each other that it’s
the turn of that group to be leading, they were so polite.
About being confident, In the beginning, they were hesitant, but then they got
the courage to stand in front of their peers and preform it, because I was
cheering them up and preforming along with them, “provide kids with the
combination of a safe environment and activities they love, will allow them to
gradually come out of their shells.” (Parenting & Education in Ireland, n.d.)
The students were creative with their movements for example when it was the
gorilla’s turn, some of the students did thumb their chest using their whole arm
while some of them only used their hands. I believe that they were imagining
that they are small and big gorillas.

Second, the aspect of movement in response to music being explored are


creating, performing, and appreciating.
Promoting reflection of:
Effort awareness –
- hands, arms, (clapping),
- hips, legs (waging their tail),
- chest, hands, arms (thumb the chest),
- legs, knees (bending knees),
- hands, ears (wiggling their ears).
Spatial Awareness –
The students were using all the space around them in the circle time (carpet),
avoiding physical contact with each other, while they are imitating animal’s
movement.
Relationships –
The student’s body will move with their peers. E.g., the dog’s group will stand in
front of the class to imitate the movement of wagging their tails , and the other
classmates will move with them (copy them).
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Finally, the music activity types assigned were Notating, Singing, and listening
to the teacher’s singing. I was not allowed to play music in my school, so I had
to sing for the students the song by myself.
While the Key elements of music explored are duration (the time during the song
lasts), dynamics (how loud or quit the song is) it gets loud when I say “fast” and
gets quiet when I say “slow”, structure (repetition), tempo (how slow or fast the
music/song is).

The roles were assigned in the lesson as four different groups, each group will
be about an animal in the video song (dog, guerrilla, camel, hippopotamus), and
each child will have an animal mask of her animal group.

I started the lesson with introducing the kids to what we are going to do, and I
explained what does perform arts means, then I told them that if they were
listening to me and not making noise, I will give them stickers.

Then I played the “Wag your tail song” on the screen to the kids, and I sang the
song while showing them the movements. I was planning to start with showing
them the video once before they start practicing, but I saw that the kids were
excited, so I asked the kids to try and dance with me, and they did very well.
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Then I divided them into four groups and assigned each group to an animal
(dog, camel, hippopotamus, gorilla). Each group was made of 3 students except
one group had two girls only.

I explained to them that when it’s your animal’s turn to show on the screen, your
group must come in front of everyone (near the smartboard) to show them your
animal’s movement, and all of the students will dance along with them (pretend
to copy the leading group). We have practiced it few times, and the groups took
their turns.
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Then I gave the students the masks to wear while practicing one last time before
performing it in front of our audience which was me and the MST. The reason I
gave the students the masks later is to avoid them getting distracted by the
masks so I get their fully attention to the act.

I felt like the students were ready to do it by themselves, so I asked them to


perform this time in front me and the MST without my instructions, they were
performing beautifully. I saw my learning outcomes being achieved, and the kids
were helping and reminding each other of the steps, they were so cooperative. It
was my first time enjoying a lesson that much.

On the other hand, I’ve faced some difficulties during this lesson. The first
difficulty was that the school bands music in classrooms because they are too
strict with the Islamic religion’s rules. Hazrat Grand said: “That which the
common culture recognizes as music is haram, and listenin g, composing,
teaching, learning, and selling musical instruments is also haram.” (Khan, 2015)
But I managed to overcome this issue by memorizing the song and sing it to the
students instead of playing the song from the video because it has sounds of
musical instruments.

The second difficulty was in the materials since I had to prepare the masks by
myself at home and I didn’t have a measurement base or a figure example, so
some of the masks were not fitting the students head size. So, I used a hair
band to stick the long string of the masks to the student’s head, while a asked
the students who have short string masks to hold it against their face using one
hand, so the other hand will be free to be used for the movements.
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Also, I had to make 48 masks not to mention how hard to make them all by
myself, but because my original idea was to give each student four masks, and
they must change the mask every time the animal change on the screen. But
then I noticed that the students might get confused and busy with changing their
masks to the right animal during the performance that will take less than 3
minutes, so they will not focus on the movements of the animals which is more
important. So, I managed to get a better idea which is dividing them into groups,
and each group will take the role of one animal only, while being able to do the
other animal’s movements as well.

I was not allowed to take pictures of the students because it’s a discrepancy of
the student’s privacy since some parents disagreed on taking pictures of their
children. It’s against the law to take photos of a minor without their parents’
permission (Brenke, 2018). But I told my MST that these pictures would be used
academically for a project, so she allowed me to take photos of the students
back, or any other position as long as their faces are covered or not shown.

I have two suggestions for extension activities to make the lesson more
interactive, we could have used clapping and natural sounds instead of using
instruments, so for example I will assign one group to make natural sounds
(clapping, tapping, or stumping their feet) and I will show them how to make the
sound and when. They will have an opportunity to explore the world around them
differently and interestingly.
My other suggestion is, If I had more time after we finish the performance, I
would have let the student's role play the animals as they are wearing their
masks, students will be free to make any scenario they want, they can just go
wild with it. Because it’s going to develop their imagination, creativity, solving
problems as well as their physical and social skills (Homan, 2016).
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References
Brenke, R. (2018, july 20). Legal Issues of Photographing School Events . Retrieved from
TheLawTog®: https://thelawtog.com/legal-issues-of-photographing-school-events/
Homan, E. (2016, June 27). Why Pretend Play Is Important to Child Developmen . Retrieved
from Pentagon Play: https://www.pentagonplay.co.uk/news -and-info/why-pretend-play-
is-important-to-child-development
Khan, S. (2015, Dec 27). Is music prohibited in Islam? Why? Retrieved Nov 22, 2018, from
What happens to the planets when a star dies? - Quora: https://www.quora.com/Is-
music-prohibited-in-Islam-Why
Parenting & Education in Ireland. (n.d.). Retrieved Nov 22, 2018, from Shyness in Teenagers -
SchoolDays.ie: https://www.schooldays.ie/articles/Performing -arts-teaches-kids-
confidence

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