Wednesday 6th February

 

Class 2: Under the Sea

The majority of the morning was spent listening to children read and assisting with their creative writing. I was in the same class today as I was on monday so i was familiar with the group of children.
After dinner I lead another hour long drama session. This time i found it slightly harder as i had to spend a lot of time pre planning the lesson so it linked to the topic they were studying. I was more nervous because i wanted the workshop to be fun but for them to learn something aswell. In order for me to achieve that i made sure i repeated everything so it stuck in their brains. We looked at creatures in the sea and how long they live for. I did this by creating a scene. Some children created the sea, some seaweed and the rest sea creatures. They then had to put them under the age they thought they were. Through out the exercise i encouraged constant physical representations of what they were portraying. Once they were corrected i told them to pay attention to where each thing was. Then we moved onto a game. At any random point in the game if i shouted 'scubadiver' then they had to pick up a card with the name of one of the objects from the previous activity and get back into the right place. In doing this it made them remember which creature matched which age. At the end of the workshop i quizzed the children on things we had covered to make sure they had taken something in. This seemed to be a success.
At the end of the day the teacher commented on how good the workshop was which was good as it was a different teacher to what i had had previously.
Also throughout the day a number of children came up to me and told me hiw much they enjoyed sessions with me.
Overall, really looking forward to rest of the two weeks.

Images of the cards i created:

  

 

Workshop Plan:

Activity:	Duration: (Approx)	Aims:	Description	Resources
Wink Murder	10 Minutes	·         To get the energy up in the room. ·         To give the children chance to relax and loose inhibitions. ·         To get the children to start thinking about acting/ play acting by encouraging them to demonstrate some dramatic deaths.	In a circle one child is chosen to be the ‘Detective’ this person stands in the middle of the circle. Ask that child to close their eyes while you choose a ‘murderer’. Make sure the child in the middle is not cheating by peaking. You can always send the child out of the room if this is possible. Once a ‘murderer’ is chosen they must stick out their tongue at the other children without the ‘detective’ noticing. If the murderer sticks their tongue out at you, you must die. The detective has three guesses to find the murderer. (Number of guesses can change depending on class size and remember to encourage dramatic deaths.)	N/A
Creating our own under the sea scene.	30 Minutes	·         Introduce the children to some basic sea creatures. ·         To teach them about the life span of some under sea creatures. ·         To think about the habitats of these creatures. ·         Get them using under the sea vocabulary.	Start in a circle. Starting with the ocean ask everyone in the circle to show you the way the waves in the ocean move. Make them use their bodies and even add sound effects. Choose 5 people out of the circle to make the sea in the middle, demonstrating their movements. Ask the children if anyone can name any oceans. Then ask the rest of the circle to show them how seaweed would move with the waves. Choose another 5 people to be the seaweed. Then choose another five to hold up the categories. Making sure the sea is still moving and everyone is joining in now go through a list of undersea creatures, choosing a child to be that creature each time. As a group they must decide which category that creature belongs; 1-10 years,15-20 years, 40-50 years, 80 years and 100+ years. Once they are all in place go through them and correct them where they have gone wrong, constantly keep asking them questions and asking them to demonstrate movements or they could get bored. Once in the right place make sure they remember where each one goes. (repeating constantly will help them remember things better and constantly keeping them involved is key)	·         Cards that say ocean x5 ·         Cards that say Seaweed x5 ·         Category Cards x5 ·         Under sea Creature cards x 10
Scuba diver	n/a	·         To constantly remind the children about what they have learnt. ·         Keeps them thinking so they are less likely to forget.	Now they have all the parts of the under the sea scene complete in order to help them remember them repetition is key. At this point carry on the workshop as normal but explain to the children that at any point if i shout ‘Scuba Diver!’ they must pick up a picture card and get into the right position as quickly as possible. They must get a different one each time so they have to remember each place. This is fun for the kids as it’s exciting and they have to think instantly.	·         Cards that say ocean x5 ·         Cards that say Seaweed x5 ·         Category Cards x5 ·         Under sea                                Creature cards x 10
River Bank	15 Minutes	·         Adds fun and energy. ·         Introduces the children to some of the names of oceans.	All children must stand in a long line down the middle of the space and face the leader who will be at one end. If the leader shouts ‘Pacific’ the children run to their left. If the leader shouts ‘Atlantic’ the children run to their right and if the leader shouts ‘Land’ they run to the middle. Last child in the right place is out and those who go to the wrong place are also out.   This can be adapted by changing the words to be more specific for example England in the middle North sea to their right and Irish sea on their left. Other movements/ actions can be added where children stay still but have to do a gesture instead.	N/A
Conclusion	5 Minutes	·         Give the children an idea of what the next lesson will involve. ·         A chance to quiz them a last time about what we have learnt.	Get the group into a small circle discuss what we have done and where next lesson will take us.	N/A