Some words about our current work:

This Mantle of the Expert unit of work is with a group of year 1 and 2 students at Muritai School. Our inquiry topic is helping others and we are going to be thinking about the key question: “How do we get our problems solved and help others to solve their problems?”. We are going to be working together for the first five weeks of this term every Wednesday.

We are going to spend time in role as people who work for a helping company. We are going to do a different drama each week where we will help clients, such as Old MacDonald, solve problems. Each week we will also be doing a range of activities to help develop our drama skills and our co-operative learning skills so that everyone can successfully participate in the team and work collectively in the drama work. As part of this skill building we will also spend time every day doing music in the Orff Schulwerk approach, which will involve singing and moving, as well as some simple ensemble work on untuned percussion instruments. You can read more about both Mantle of the Expert and Orff Schulwerk by clicking on links on this blog.

Wednesday 31 October 2012

DAY THREE


MOVING TO MUSIC AND A POTATO SONG

Today we started with moving to music with ribbons.  We listened to a range of different pieces and explored different ways of moving around the space, quickly and slowly.   We then had a go at making up some dances, using our ribbons, in pairs.  Some of these partner dances were very effective.

Then we learnt a potato song!  Our group came up with three favourite types of potatoes: buttered potatoes, mashed potatoes, and scalloped potatoes.  We came up with an action for each of these and then walked around the room singing the different types of potatoes and doing our actions.  The girls sang first and the boys echoed.  We then stopped and found a partner and we layered our hands, fist over fist, while singing “one potato, two potato, three potato, four, five potato, six potato, seven potato more…” then around the room we went again singing our potato song – lots of fun!

THE LANGAUGE OF ADVERTISING
Next we talked about different types of advertising.  We talked about how companies advertised and looked at examples of ads in the yellow pages.  We talked about the types of persuassive language used, the use of quotes and speech bubbles, bullet points, starbursts, and questions.  We imagined we had a burst pipe and needed a plumber and had to choose from one of the advertisements in the yellow pages.  We looked at the ads we liked the best and we made a list of the things that were included in these ads:
  1. name of the company
  2. a picture or logo
  3. use of questions
  4. reasons why they were good
  5. phone number and email
  6. quotes from happy customers
  7. speech bubbles or startbursts
We discovered that a lot of plumbers advertise that they work 24/7, so we talked about what this means.

We talked about how ads can also be on TV and radio.  Some of the children also mentioned the idea of jingles and came up with their own jingles for our company – very creative!

We then had a go at making our own advertisements for ‘The Problem Solvers’.  Here are some of the phrases the children created for their advertisements:

"do you have a problem?"
"do you need us?"
“we come quick!”
“we don’t cost much”
“we are happy to help”
“we love helping people”
“we work as a team”
“we wear uniforms”
“we listen carefully”
“our customers Mrs Macdonald and Charlie Grinling are pleased with our work”
"we have happy customers"
"call us - go problem solvers!"

An Advertisment for 'The Problem Solvers - "professional we wear uniforms", nice use of tick boxes for bullet points.
Use of 24/7, starbursts and a logo.
Another advertisment with a web address!
Problems?  Problems? We can solve your problems!  We are fast quality.

These boys put together a TV advertisment for our company: "Oh No!  Who can help me with my problem?"
MYSTERY BAG
To begin our drama work today we explored the contents of a mystery bag to see if we could get clues about who the things belonged to.  There were come baggy pants, a hat with a flower on it, three tennis balls, a big bow tie, and a red nose.  We all quickly guessed that they belonged to a clown.  We then talked about what clowns do and some of the children shared stories about seeing a clown in a circus or show.  We also read some clown stories to set the scene: ‘Olivia Saves the Circus’ by Ian Falconer and ‘Smarty Pants’ by Joy Cowley. 

Mystery Bag: Who do you think these things belong to?
For our drama we then put the items from the mystery bag onto the wall and collectively created a clown character.

Our collective clown character
HELPING A SAD CLOWN WHO CAN’T MAKE PEOPLE LAUGH!

We then discovered that our clown character needed our help.  It turned out he had wanted to be a clown all his life but had never had a chance.  He had however finally got a chance last night, when a circus in town needed a clown because their clown was sick with the chickenpox!  Our clown was given the job as temporary clown but he had been unable to make the audience laugh.  He had been quite nervous and also hadn’t ever been to clown school so ran out of ideas when he was on the stage.  The ringmaster had given him a warning and he had only 5 days to sort out his performance….could ‘The Problem Solvers’ help?  “Definitely!”

In role as ‘The Problem Sovers’ the team brainstormed ideas for a good funny clown performance including getting dressed up as a girl in high heels and pretending to go and get his nails painted but falling over lots on the way…!  The team then came up with a series of small acts for the clown and shared them with each other.  The acts included:

  • walking backwards, bumping into another clown and falling over.
  • throwing balls and missing
  • bending over and having another clown pretend to play the drum on the other clown’s bottom
  • juggling
  • trying to balance on a low beam and falling over
  • miming being stuck in a box then getting out but having his pants fall down

The team decided to come up with a training plan and put together a series of lessons that they would teach to him, which included:
  • how to talk in a loud confident voice and do funny voices too
  • fake falling: how to fall over and not hurt yourself, with teaching points on how the wobblier you fall the funnier it is and how to wave your arms and legs in the air like a beetle
  • how to mime
  • how to make funny faces
  • how to balance and then fake fall
  • how to walk blindfolded
  • how to throw custard pies
  • how to juggle 

Here are some pictures that went with some of the lesson plans:


"how to balance and fall" 
"fake falling"
"funny faces make people laugh"
"custard pie throwing lessons"

"Talk loud and in funny voices"
"throwing and catching (and missing!)"
A RITUAL TO FINISH OUR STORY
To finish our story of the clown we did a drama activity known as a ritual.  For this we each had a turn to stand up and present our clown with our instructions and pictures and spoke aloud a message for the clown.  This was a lovely way to finish the days work.

“good luck with your circus performance”
“I hope you have a great show”
“I hope these instructions help you”

Ritual: "Good luck for your performance Mr Clown!"


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