Prep

Welcome to the Prep Performing Arts pages!

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For more information on specific units, please click on the links below:

Unit 1 – Performing Arts with Drama Focus

Unit 2 – Transdisciplinary with Homeroom – Balance and Motion

Prep Overview

Wherever possible, Performing Arts will provide authentic, relevant links to support, enhance and inform learning in the PYP Unit of Inquiry that the students are studying in their homeroom.   One of the main objectives of the Performing Arts programme at CDNIS is that students will enjoy and experience different forms of arts (music, dance and drama).   Learning in these three art forms will be interwoven and not taught in isolation.   Students will be constantly responding to and creating artworks, making connections between their own work and the works of others.   They will be developing an understanding that the performing arts are a means of communication and expression.

During Performing Arts classes the Prep students will have be learning a variety of vocal techniques.   Music plays an important part in the learning language process and for this reason we will be learning chants, songs and rhymes throughout the school year.   The students will continue to develop a sense of rhythm and beat through listening, playing, singing, dancing and communicating.

Through the Units of Inquiry, the Prep students will gain a deeper understanding of the basic musical elements of tempo (speed), dynamics (volume), pitch (highness or lowness of a sound), duration (length of time a sound lasts) and timbre (tone colour e.g. bright/dark).   The students will have a multitude of opportunities to be both active and reflective when responding to and creating artworks.

Through dance, Prep students will begin to describe the ideas and feelings communicated through body movements.   They will be inquiring into the way certain body postures and movements communicate certain ideas and feelings.   We endeavour to ensure that all students feel safe and secure in their learning environment, enabling them to express themselves creatively through movement.   The students will begin to work individually or in groups with trust and confidence.

Prep students will be encouraged to respond to dramatic ideas through spoken, visual, auditory and kinesthetic mediums.   They will be talking about ideas and feelings in response to dramatic performances, reflecting on their own work and the work of others.   The students will be developing the ability to cooperate and communicate with others in creating drama.