Week 1:
This was the first week of my Drama class. I was very nervous as I do not have much experience in the subject of Drama. Throughout Elementary school, my teachers never taught Drama often. I may have participated in one or two classes each year. Likewise, I do not have any experience teaching Drama as my associate teacher never incorporated Drama into the class when I was completing my placement. Drama has been quite a foreign and scary concept for me to have to teach. I am both nervous and excited to learn through this course activities that I can use to incorporate in teaching Drama. One of the strategies used this week was position mapping. Dr. Winters had us position ourselves in the room and use facial expressions to represent how we felt about teaching Drama. My position was far away from the screen and I was hugging myself. This represents how much I do not like Drama and how uncomfortable I feel having to teach this subject at this point. I hope in the next couple of weeks that my position will change and I will become more comfortable and familiar with the Drama curriculum.
Today we also did a lesson on using drama strategies to teach Language Arts. One of the activities was the book Gift Days by Kari Lynn Winters was read to the class. To help students gain a deeper knowledge of the book was the drama strategy of tableaux. While the teacher reads the book, stop while reading and have students pause to display what they think the character feels in that moment and the actions the character is doing. The video below shows me holding a tableaux and me explaining my feelings as the character after hearing that the character is working hard and all she wants to do is learn to read. 
Week 2:
This was the second week of my Drama class and I am starting to come out of my comfort zone more and become comfortable with the Drama curriculum. Today we focused on the area of using Drama strategies to teach Math. One of the activities that stood out to me this week was the thank-you activity. This activity, students came on the screen and without saying the amount of money they gave would use their facial expressions and actions to pretend to pass money to someone else on the screen. The other person would then use a facial expression and actions to demonstrate the amount of money they got. They would show excitement if they got a lot of money or a not so excited face if they pretend to not get a lot. Then the student would say thank-you for giving them what amount they are portraying they received. In my Math course last year, we also participated in this activity. It helps the students to understand the monetary value of money from the facial expressions and sound effects of their peers. I found that I will definitely use this activity to not only engage students in math but also help especially the younger students understand the value of money. This past year in placement, I had a student in grade 6 who was never taught the value of money. She ended up stealing from her mom $100 and then giving her friend the $100 to pay for a couple of snacks she got from the corner store. The student did not understand the amount she gave the student was a lot of money to buy snacks with. The student also had trouble staying focused in class. I find that this activity would be a good way to help this student pay attention in class but also learn the monetary value of money.
Week 3:
In week 3, I started to become an expert in learning how to incorporate Drama into the classroom. This week, Dr. Winters taught how to incorporate Drama into a Science Lesson. I love Science and this is a subject that I would love to add on as a teachable. I love how there are so many hands-on experiences that you can have in Science. One of the activities that stood out to me this week was the guided visualization activity, This activity Dr. Winters had everyone close their eyes and she read a descriptive piece on the bee. Next while she read the piece again, we drew all at the same time a bee from the descriptions that she read to us. I am an audio and visual learner so it helped me to understand the different parts of the bee and the importance of them. Last year, I was placed in a grade 6 class that was very rowdy. They had a hard time sitting still so it was vital to make sure that they were always learning through a hands-on approach. One of the units they did was on Flight for Science. Many of the students had trouble learning the different concepts in the unit. This activity would be a great way to help the students visualize better how the different parts of flight worked. It would also help them stay engaged.
Week 4:
For this weeks lesson I was very excited. Social studies is my teachable so I felt more prepared this week to learn as I am quite familiar with the social studies curriculum. I have often incorporated other subjects to teach the social studies curriculum like Language Arts but I have never used Drama. Last year, in my Language Arts class I learned about using picture books to teach social studies. One activity that stood out to me this week was the role on the wall. Our class was learning about Churchill Manitoba and used Google Jamboard to write as if we were a polar bear. This helped me to visualize the physical land features of Churchill. When becoming the polar bear it helped to understand the climate and food sources that a polar bear would need to survive. Last year, I taught a lesson for social studies on an Indigenous girl's experience in the Residential School system. An activity, like this would help the students understand and visualize better what life was like in the Northern communities in Canada.
https://jamboard.google.com/d/10xqZjyKMGJHWMn6mhAVry862ymdE3H0vWyuF1kh3mKQ/edit?usp=sharing
Week 5:
This week our class prepared presentations each group highlighting the different Drama strategies. I loved that not only did everyone get experience with presenting the strategies but also with being an active audience member. Everyone not only participated in other group member's presentations but also provided groups with critical feedback. My group choose to prepare an activity for health class. This was to use the drama strategies to teach on healthy relationships with peers. I liked how we completed this activity in groups as it helped to collaborate and discuss what each of us thought would be important to do in the lesson. Likewise, participating in other group's presentations helped me to also have some other lesson plan ideas of how I can incorporate Drama into other subjects. This helped me to feel more confident in developing lessons for drama. Also, I liked the aspect of giving critical feedback to other groups. This helped me build on my skill of evaluation and providing critical feedback to students. Since I have little experience, with teaching Drama it was nice to also have the experience of providing feedback. Providing feedback and assessing students is a critical part in their learning process. Attached is the strategy's my group used in their lesson.
Week 6:
This week we participated in a virtual fieldtrip. The fieldtrip took us virtually over to a grade 8 class at a local Elementary School in Niagara. For the fieldtrip, the students in the grade 8 class would be participating in a cross-curricular class of Health and Drama. This class used Drama strategies to teach students about Influenza and how the virus is contracted and spreads. Students also learned how they can protect themselves from contracting the virus. The students where taught by an instructor that was in a virtual location. This week stood out to me the most from the other weeks in the course. Being able to see what Drama looks like being taught in an actual class helped to visualize how I want to teach Drama in my future class and what it potentially might look like. For example, I find that learning about health I would often zone out and not pay attention myself throughout school. When Dr. Winters got the students to write like they were in the role as the virus (example of my own letter below). Dr. Winters had them write to their host of what they did right in order to have the virus come into their body. This not only was a fun activity, but students who had trouble paying attention to the class before seemed to become engaged. The students even seemed excited to share their letter with the class. From the start of this course, I mentioned how nervous I was to teach Drama. Now I can say that I am excited to incorporate Drama into my future classes!!!
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