Yesterday I attended an absolutely charming celebratory session for children and their parents in a Year One classroom. Whilst there I saw children being celebrated as authors, publishers and performers and it was delightful.
In Science this term, the children had been studying light and sound. As a way of extending their learning and deepening their understanding, a shadow puppet play was planned, scripted and performed. The children were given a choice of simple stories including fairytales, Grug stories and Meg and Mog books. They then worked in groups to script a performance and design and craft their puppets. To do this effectively, they had to think about the impact of light being shone from behind them and work to ensure that their puppets were solid and hardy enough to allow the light to reflect the true nature of the character and the events in the plot. Many redesigns and modifications were applied as part of this process.
Previously, we had also filmed their shows – with the children being the ones behind the iPad camera, making decisions about lighting, angles and sound. As sound was an important element of their Science study, we also identified the need for a microphone to be attached to the iPad and to be fed under the sheet so voices could be heard well.
In addition to the delights of the Puppet Show, the children had created their own digital books which were an innovation on the ‘Pigeon’ stories which they had read as part of their English study. They had used Book Creator to do this and Explain Everything to create some of the hand-drawn images. Mrs Fisher had printed these out in colour and these were presented in lovely paper bags – in much the same way as you would with a Book Launch. The children had decorated the bags.
The children were then able to share the digital books with their parents in additional to being able to take the printed books home in the very special paper bags.
There are two curriculum areas which have been recently approved for use by ACARA. One is the Arts curriculum and the other is the Digital Technologies Curriculum. Media Arts lies within the Arts and is related to children exploring and becoming aware of story composition and communicating their ideas through the use of technology. They:
- become aware of structure, intent, character and settings in ideas and stories
- explore ideas and learn about composition, sound and technologies to construct stories
- learn how their ideas can be communicated through selecting and organising the elements of media arts.
Digital Technologies at this level involves being able to identify the way digital systems are used to meet specific purpose and in both of these projects, these children were meeting this outcome. Within this area also, they are creating and organising ideas and information.
Well done Mrs Fisher, Mrs O’Connor and the children of 1S – truly looking to the future and providing an engaging experience which deepened understanding of key curriculum areas and allowed children’s natural wonder, curiosity and creativity to shine.
