Jack and the Beanstalk Project

For the first two weeks the whole of the Primary Ed cohort were to put on a performance of Jack and the Beanstalk, to be watched on the second Friday by the staff and PGCE students.

Now some people would be thrilled to be able to do a drama and music production in the first two weeks of their course but I will be honest, I was slightly dreading it. I am happy performing as I'm a Ballroom and Latin dancer which involves a lot of putting on shows and acting confident but that is within my comfort zone, acting is not. 

We were split into groups of approximately 25 students per group, and it was a real mix of not only specialisms but also personality's and talents meaning that we had a wide range of people. I found that this helped us to begin with as it meant that everyone was in the same boat and could make friends with peers outside of their specialisms and tutor groups, but nearer the end of the two weeks it meant we had clashes of personalities and opinions splitting the group up.

We had to learn three songs altogether but I found that through rehearsing the whole thing through we all picked up the songs really quickly and in no time were humming along to other groups songs. This really gelled us as a whole cohort and meant that we interacted with not only our group but felt comfortable joining in with others too.   

Although I had some preconceived ideas of what this project would be like it outdid all my expectations and after the first couple of sessions I found that I was approaching it with a more open mind and actually thoroughly enjoyed the experience. I would even say that I would be happy to do it again and a lot more comfortable if I were asked to put on a play or performance with a class.

I knew that this course would challenge me in different ways but I was dreading having to do music or drama and have found that I not only enjoyed it but the experience has pushed me out of my comfort zone and made me more enthusiastic about teaching subjects which I don't consider myself much good at.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Maths - Tessellations

Image
A tessellation is a pattern of shapes that fit together to make a pattern, picture or even mosaic. In our maths seminar we created tessellations by cutting out the same shape from a template sheet and then positioning them together to see which combinations made different shapes and patterns. This is a lovely relaxed and creative activity to take into schools as it is enjoyable and does not feel like maths but you are learning to experiment with shape to create new shape combinations. It could be used as a starter activity for a lesson on shape and space and you could give them a time limit by using things such as the countdown tune to ensure the activity last for the amount of time you want it to. Here are ones which we made in maths:
Read more

English - Story Telling

For Homework in English we got set to go away and learn a story and a poem off by heart. Now this sounds like a simple enough task but when you actually try it becomes trickier, you worry you will  forget the order of the story or the words and end up looking silly in front of your peers, plus however much you practice your story there is always that one section which catches you out! Me, Abi and Amy decided that as a group we would learn the story ' We're going on a Bear Hunt ' and after listening to our English seminar lecturer talking about Pie Corbett and how he told stories we decided we were going to not only tell the story but tell it with actions, this helps make it more engaging and interactive for the children plus they can join in with your actions! After researching the book 'We're going on a Bear Hunt' we discovered an amazing video of the author actually telling the story, with actions! You can look at the video here:  http://www.youtu
Read more

Enamelling with the Enamellers guild...

Image
I have been a member of the Enamellers guild for a few years now and have only been to one meeting so far... So I thought this year that should change, and I signed up for the workshop/meeting last weekend with Ruth Ball. We experimented with surface design and how to create a matte finish on enamelled pieces. It was really interesting, that is when I finally found the English bridge workshop (the place it was  held at).  Ruth was an amazing teacher and really very modest about her ability, here are some photos of her stuff... Beautiful! You can check out her website at: www.ruthballenameldesign.com  Here are some examples of the work produced... And these are my four pendants! I also found that being in a place that had lots of experts who had been enamelling for years was very inspiring and I had loads of inspiration and ideas through talking to the other members of the guild. I will definitely be attending the next meeting! The moral of this story is to try new things even if they s
Read more