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Through the drama unit, I have learned about the different elements of drama and how to incorporate them into a classroom. Throughout this module, we learned about warmups, tableaux, mime, puppetry, vocal warmups and storytelling. Before I start a unit on drama I would talk to my class about respect, how this is a no judgement zone, set boundaries and then I would go on to give an example of what I want to see to make myself more relatable and show them that there is nothing to be worried about and to make them comfortable as it can be quite a vulnerable unit. When putting my class into groups I will make sure I pair people up with someone I know they are comfortable with then put the pairs into groups so everyone has at least one person in their team they are comfortable with and they feel like they can contribute. I feel that getting students outside of their comfort zone will allow students to unlock their full potential and this will allow them to grow and they could end up surprising themselves by doing something that they didn’t think they were capable of.

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During the dance part of this unit I have learnt that dance can be incorporated into different subjects, not just arts. We did many activities, such as model walks and name games, which were creating a dance following directions for each letter of our name and making little dance routines. It can help teach fine motor skills, left and right, science concepts, humanities concepts, English and maths. Before I start to teach the content, I will always create a safe space for the students where they feel comfortable and respected. A place where they feel confident in themselves and their ability to perform. Dance can be used as a brain break or even as a backup when it’s raining and you have a sport lesson to run. Overall, throughout this unit, I’ve learnt many ways to do a fun lesson incorporating dance to keep the children active and engaged. Dance can be a great tool to help children become more comfortable in the classroom with their peers and with you.

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This is a video I would show for a brief introduction to puppetry.

When completing the puppetry section of the module I found while looking around people were having a lot of fun and expressing themselves in a way that you wouldn’t normally see. Karaolis (2023) wrote that puppets encourage children to come into conversation, play with creativity and express themselves in their own way. Educators saw that puppets made the children more playful and positive (Karaolis, 2023). Puppetry could be brought into everyday teaching to help tell stories in English, show how things happened in humanities and even just for a fun way to show how they are feeling. Masks can create distance from the person to the role they are performing the same way that puppetry can. This is why it can benefit children who experience anxiety or a quite shy as they can find it quite scary performing in front of the class but if they use a puppet, it doesn’t seem like it’s them performing (Dinham, 2023).

(ACADRM029)

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This video gives an example of someone performing mime

Mime uses actions and no words which causes children to focus on using body language or actions special expressions and gestures. This helps develop awareness for children of their bodies and ways they can communicate without voices (Dinham, 2023). I found when doing mime myself I really had to think about my body language and facial expressions. While doing this unit we played many games. One game that stuck out to me was invisible objects. This was when we had to give our partner a gift and we couldn’t tell them what the gift was, but we had to act out the weight and size and then they had to receive the gift and tell us what it was. You saw everyone using their imagination which doesn’t happen a lot. It allowed people to have fun with her and not be so serious. I did find people were quite giggly about doing mine so that is something to keep in mind if I was to use that in my classroom.

(ACADRM028)

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Punchomime - Mime4Kids פאנצ'ומימה - פנטומימה לילדים

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Throughout the whole unit of drama, the underlying aspect was storytelling, we conveyed this by using puppetry, mime, tableaux and soundscapes. But we never just got straight into it. We always had a warmup that related to what we were doing so we didn’t just go in with no guidance. Some of the activities that I would not use are mime and soundscapes as I found myself giggly and the other people in the class were giggly as well during these activities. I think that students in primary school might feel the same way and it could be hard for them to center themselves and calm back down after completing the activity.  Some of the activities I would use are puppetry or tableaux as they can be catered towards everybody including the shy children and it’s not as intimidating as performing a whole mime performance or performing a soundscape. I would use the warmup games in my everyday classroom as well as I feel like it is a nice icebreaker if you’re just meeting the class even if the class meeting each other for the first time and doing drama. My favourite game to use would be the 1-8 walk the room or stop, go, jump, clap game as it requires everyone to switch on their brain and have fun. For drama I would use the ping-pong ball game where we all jump over a ping-pong ball or basketball, and it slowly gets bigger and everyone must use their imagination.

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I will incorporate dance into my classroom as a brain break to help students release excess energy and focus again. Breaks the involved movement like dancing help cognitive functioning by preventing the children from becoming overloaded with information. This will improve their attention and enhance that overall engagement. Using dance also creates an inclusive and fun environment where students can express themselves whilst refreshing their brains to begin a new lesson.

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"The Wiggle Dance!" 🪱 /// Danny Go! Brain Break Songs for Kids

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To introduce dance to a class where I had to go and teach it, I would show this video to start with, as it briefly touches on all the concepts. This would be a good way to slowly get the children to see what dance is about and that it is not something to be worried about. To start, the very first lesson would play a video like this and then play a quick dance game like the name game.

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Dance is a form of movement that expresses emotions; it is done with purpose and form (Dinham, 2023). The elements of dance are body, space, time, and energy (Dinham, 2023). The body is how the child moves themselves, for example, kicking their legs up in the air strongly and fast. Space is where they move their body to, for example, kicking their leg up in the air. Time is how quickly or slowly they do the action, and energy is how they perform it, so it could be quickly, slowly, weakly, or delicately. All these elements put together create a dance sequence, not just someone kicking their leg up into the air (Dinham, 2023).

Why is dance good?

Dance supports physical development, cognitive development, emotional maturity and social awareness. it can boost fitness, balance, coordination, benefit sensory awareness, communication and self-esteem. Dance not only teaches students how to dance, it can also teach lifelong skills like patience and teamwork (Lewis, 2019).

(ACADAM001)

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Some elements of dance I will include in my classroom; I will be using dance as a get-to-know-me activity in the first week before any groups have been made to make the students all comfortable with one another. These dances will be the "Name Dance" and the "Birthday Dance", and then get my students to show everyone their favourite dance move. I will also get the students to use dance to keep them engaged through my lesson and get them up and moving so they aren't sitting on the floor the whole lesson. I think this is a good way to teach, as it can get students up and remembering the lesson. Working in groups helps students develop teamwork skills, while dance group work enhances their spatial awareness, preventing bumps (Dinham, 2023). Dance is great for assemblies, as it can keep the whole school engaged with all the music and movement on stage, and everywhere you look, something is happening.

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Through the unit of dance, one of the main concepts was to build the student confidence when it came to dance. It was to show that dance wasn’t a scary thing to teach or a scary thing to do. If you have fun and have a go, you are on the right track. Whilst doing dance, we always had a warmup to get ourselves into the mindset and comfortable in the classroom, and this is something I will always implement into my teaching, not just for the arts.

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During the media arts section of this unit, we covered many activities, such as watching videos and reflecting on them, making our own stock-motion videos and taking photos at different angles, and how to bring things like this into classrooms. These types of skills and experiences being taught are vital for students; they can help build creativity, critical thinking, collaboration and problem-solving.  Teaching students media arts is such an important thing to do, as technology is the future, and students are all going to need to know these skills, so it is vital that teachers know what they are. This is why this section of the unit was such an important one to cover.   Students participating in media arts allows them to show their ideas and feelings in another form, making learning more versatile and fun. I will use these types of activities in my classroom to allow students to investigate their interests in the arts. I will make sure everyone is comfortable in my classroom and has a safe and inclusive culture where everyone’s voice is heard.

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There are 4 types of codes in media: technical codes (this is how to create an image), Symbolic codes: this is how to make meaning from the image. Audio codes make meaning through audio, and written codes make meaning through text (SCSA, 2017). Conventions are reoccurring codes that the audience now understands as a universal thing (SCSA, 2017). This is vital for children in watching and creating movies, as they can tell who the bad guy is, and they can then implement this into their work. Students' understanding codes and conventions is vital for them to be able to create good media pieces and to analyse them (Dinham, 2023).

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Media Basics - Introduction to Codes and Conventions

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The different types of camera angles are such a powerful use of technical codes, as this can really show the difference between characters by not even having them talk (Dinham, 2023). You can show weakness and power just by the positioning of the camera. There are many types of camera angles, but the main ones to teach kids are mid-shot, close-up, long-shot, high angle, low angle and over-the-shoulder shot (Lannom, 2025). These types of shots allow the students to make films with a few different shots and make them have meaning. Camera angles can make a massive difference in the meaning behind your shot (Lannom, 2025).

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Ultimate Guide to Camera Angles: Every Camera Shot Explained [Shot List, Ep. 3]

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One way of bringing media into the classroom is by getting students to make movies or take photos of their work. Instead of writing a report, students can record themselves “reporting” on the topic like a news channel. I will do comic strips for writing, as this is a fun way for students to show their storytelling skills in another form that might make some students perform better as they enjoy it and are more engaged (Dinham, 2023). I will also use things like making a podcast or radio station, as this will engage students and allow them to showcase their skills in other forms (Dinham, 2023). This allows students of all capabilities to perform to the best of their ability and succeed due to being more engaged and not sitting in the same types of lessons for 14 years.

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Through this section of media arts, the main idea was to teach us pre-service teachers about media arts and how to use some of the programs, so we can then go into classrooms and teach this topic with confidence. We need to be confident in this and teach it, as this is a crucial part of the future for our young students who will be going into a fully digital workforce. I really enjoyed this unit, as I loved making stock motion films and editing my own film. I think this is a beneficial unit to study, as it will make a huge impact on our teaching. I will use a few of the activities we used in this unit in my own classroom, as they were perfect for showing the kids fun and quick things that will quickly make them interested and engaged. One of these being the Star Wars photos where it looked like we were using the force choke on a partner, but it was just a PANO shot on our phones. I feel this will quickly engage the older kids and make them love this topic.

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Acknowledgement: I acknowledge the use of Grammarly (Free Version) to edit my assignment.