This year’s theme for World Radio Day was ‘Radio In Time of Emergency‘. I developed this drama unit for Year 5 & 6 around that theme with a focus on improvised dialogue, characterisation and structure. The lesson sequence is based on the 5Es teaching model, familiar to many teachers from working with the Primary Connections science modules.
Tags: 5Es, drama, lesson plan, radioArticles by Flynx
‘Compass Rose’ in Stage Whispers Magazine
‘Compass Rose’ received a promo in the March / April edition of Stage Whispers.
Tags: Compass RoseThe Ghost of Tom
The ‘Ghost of Tom’ (or ‘Ghost of John’) is a perennial Halloween favourite and no wonder. It’s (a little bit) spooky, has a ghost, a ghost lyric (oo-oo-oo), is a round and can be accompanied by just two notes. This version is in Am, making it easy to perform on tuned percussion instruments (no sharps or
Tags: Accompaniment, Halloween, Percussion, songSync Music Playlists – collapsing all
When I sync my iTunes playlists with my iPad or iPhone, the playlists are – by default – all expanded. Collapsing these, all scrolling to the bottom can be quite frustrating and time consuming. However… Clicking with Ctrl + Down Arrow on any of the expand / collapse triangles will collapse all the playlists. Brilliant!
SunSmart Training
It’s the summer term here in Australia, which means students have to wear hats during playtime at school. The SunSmart site came up while researching ideas for ‘No Hat/ No Play’ signs for our schoolyard. After a quick registration, I completed the online teacher training. It’s pretty basic – quizzes, animations, text to read – but provides
Music Alphabet Cards
“Music Mind Games” (Michiko Yurko, Warner Bros Publications) is an outstanding resource for any music educator, especially so if you’re planning on teaching any aspect of music theory. With its emphasis on cooperative learning, hands-on games and ‘joyful learning’ the simple, focused and fun games can be used to teach everything from the basic music alphabet
Spot the Station
NASA has a handy service so you can know ‘when to look up’ and see the International Space Station. Head on over to spotthestation.nasa.gov Clock the ‘Sign up for alerts’ button. Select your country, state / region and city. As a proud South Australian I was limited to four somewhat peculiar choices: Adelaide, Leigh Creek, Peterborough
Tags: ISS, Our Place In Space, Space, Space StationThe Three Billy Goats Gruff: Shadow Puppets
The Three Billy Goats Gruff story lends itself marvelously for drama explorations. With only two characters ‘on-stage’ at any one time it’s also ideal for small-group puppetry. This download is a set of character silhouettes that are ideal for use as shadow puppets. Just cut the shapes out, glue on sticks and away you go. Students
Silent Movies, Musicless Videos & Bad Lip Reading
My current middle school performing arts unit is on Film Sound and traditionally students demonstrate their knowledge of Foley sound by recording a short video and adding sound effects to it. This year we’ve utilised the rich diversity that is youtube and made use of the many silent movies, musicless videos and bad-lip reading videos
Tags: Bad lip reading, Foley, Musicless Videos, Silent Movies, Sound editingLego Moviemaker App Manual
I’ve been using the Lego Movie Maker app with our students for a while now. The app is free (yipee!) and although it’s a bit clunky in places it’s proven a real hit with children from ages 6-14. If you do any stop motion animation on the iPad or iPhone give it a go. And feel free
Tags: manual, stop motion animation