Reflection #15 Where am I heading with the Arts and Arts Integration?

I have always thought of the Arts as an important part of any education. There are of course some forms of art I am more comfortable with than others but I love and enjoy all of them. So what does this mean to me as a teacher?

Luckily there are many resources out there for teachers looking to add the arts to their core lesson plans. There is the UEN web page, and Springville Art Museum site and with Google all you need to do is type in math lesson plan ideas using (insert the type of arts you want to use). I also plan on taking as many continuing education classes as I can. I particularly look forward to the arts ones. In January I am taking a Zumbatomics certification class. Zumba is a Latin-inspired, dance-fitness class that incorporates Latin and international music and dance movements (Perez, Bato 2010). Zumbatomics is Zumba for children 12 and under. I thought it would be important to add this training to my resume. With more and more budget cuts and teachers feeling that they don’t have time for “the extras” not only are the arts disappearing from our schools but so is PE. With the Zumbatomics training I can incorporate dance and fitness into my social studies lesson. I would also like to start an after school program using the Zumba formula.

When I was in field one of the students saw my Zumba wrist bands. She told me that she loves to do Zumba. If I had been there longer and gotten to the point in Social Studies where the students learn about slavery I would have taught them a Cumbia dance and talked about how the foot work is small and close together because of the chains around their ankles. It would then be fun to have the students make a quilt square to help reinforce the maps to find the Underground Railroad. After that we could do a drama lesson having the students depict life on the plantation or escaping.

I have tons of ideas, binders of music and dance lesson plans a several books. I can’t wait to start the adventure of teaching and life long learning.

# 14 Arts Integration and Teaching

I have really enjoyed this class. I have always loved music, dance and theater both watching and participating. I have also always loved looking at visual arts even though I have no talent for creating my own. I attribute much of my love for the arts to my mom and school.

I was one of the lucky kids. My parents always had music of all genres playing in our home. I was exposed to everything from Mozart and Baugh to the Beatles and the Carpenters. My dad played the flute and he had a friend that played the guitar. I always knew that I wanted to play an instrument. In fifth grade I learned the violin and in seventh grade I learned the flute. I don’t remember much about my schooling until fourth grade. The things that I do remember mostly revolved around the arts. I remember in about second grade learning the words to the song The Candy Man. I also remember learning about Hawaii. We made a book to put all of our activities in. I still have mine. We made lays, colored a picture of King Kamahi Mahi and did salt dough replicas of the Island. I also remember making my mom a candle for Christmas. In the upper grades, fourth through sixth, my elementary school was set up very much like a junior high. For half of the day we had home room which consisted of all the language arts. I still remember righting haiku poems and halving to memorize a poem of my choice. I still have that poem memorized but can’t find the book I got it from. The second half of the day we traveled. We had a different teacher for Social Studies, Math, PE, Music and Art. My art teachers name was Miss Zeminick. She taught us how to work with clay, fire it, paint it, glaze it and fire it again. We worked with paper mashie and one activity we started by drawing a picture of something we were studying in science, then we made our own carbon paper, after that we traced our picture onto a surface that now I don’t know what it is, but it seemed like it was some kind of soft, clay, tile. Then we took a carving tool and carved out our picture, the next step we inked our carving then put a piece of paper over it and rubbed. Each step had a final product but the final, final product was our stamp.

In music we learned to sing as a choir, play simple instruments and perform in front of our peers. Every year at the end we would have a talent show. The top three winners in each class would then perform for the final awards assembly for the year. In sixth grade I was chosen. I was petrified but for the past three years our teacher made us perform in class to prepare us for real world experiences.

Once a year for an entire semester in our PE class we square danced. I loved it. I was not the most athletic person and did not like playing flag football or basket ball. But when it was time for square dancing a looked forward to gym class. Almost every year without fail there were more girls than boys so the teacher chose me to be his dance partner. This was the only time I felt special and had high self efficacy in school.

Isn’t it interesting that my most vivid memories of grade school come from the arts? Our text and many other resources talk about how important the arts are for learning. As I have observed several classes I have noticed that some teachers are doing a great job of integrating the arts into their curriculum. I saw a school were PE was no longer a part of the curriculum so the teacher used theater and PE combined to get to the students. It was a guided improve similar to the TV show whose line is it Any Way. Most of the students really had fun and got to stretch their muscles and get a cardio work out at the same time. But I have also noticed that most teachers have almost no arts in their classroom. I have also noticed how much this has hurt the students in other academic areas especially Language arts. The students have a very difficult time tapping in to the creative part of their brain to write a tall tale or a piece of fiction. They are fine to write about something that happened to them over the summer but ask them to write about a made up kingdom and they are paralyzed. I have noticed that the lack of arts is also hurting most teachers’ ability to teach and have classroom management. They tend to only teach by direct instruction because they’re not sure how to do it any other way. I like how Dr. Escalante showed us how a teacher started out teaching creative movement to his students by reading it directly from someone else’s lesson plan or book. But over time, as he got more comfortable with it himself, he branched out and started coming up with his own lessons. He now is a traveling lecturer, teaching teachers how to integrate creative dance into their lessons.

I hope as teachers we are never to self contuse to try new things and never to seasoned to keep learning and growing ourselves. We need to set the example for our students and our peer teachers.

Last Week of Field

What: I completely forgot to blog last week. This was our last week in field. I am really going to miss it. The students were wonderful and this experience reinforced for me how much I really enjoy fifth grade.

While working at this school I noticed that the only specialty classes that the students had were P.E and computers. At my kids school their specialty classes are P.E., music, art, and computers. I asked one of the students when they have music and art, I thought maybe they had it later in the day when we were not there. The student told me that they don’t have art or music. This made me sad and a little angry.

So What: One of the days that I was there the students had some free time were the teacher told them they could do SSR (silent, sustained, reading), work on their tall tales, math, spelling or if they had all that done they could have some free time. There were many students that I know for a fact didn’t have their work done for those subjects and took the free time but I didn’t say anything. The reason I didn’t say anything was because almost all of the students that took the free time got out art supplies and started making pictures. The teacher, even though she doesn’t know a lot about art herself, keeps many kinds of art supplies available for her students to use. She has water colors, markers, colored pencils and lots of paper. Most of the students got out the water colors and were using several different types of techniques. When I asked one of the students were she learned to do what she was dong she said her teacher last year showed her how. I really feel like the class needed this time to be creative and unwind. I was happy to see that the teacher gave the students this time to explore and be creative.

There was one particular student that I noticed was really struggling in every subject. It wasn’t because she didn’t know how to do what was being taught but she had a hard time concentrating. One day she noticed my plastic wrist bands and asked me what they were for. I told her they were for Zumba. She told me she did Zumba also and really liked it. She also takes other dance lessons. I got thinking that all this student may need to succeed is to have some core lessons (math, science, lit.) done through creative movement. I wish I had notice this before we had taught all our lessons.

Now What: When we become teachers we don’t know what kind of conditions we will be teaching in. It may be a school like the one my kids go to that still has art and music or it may be like the one I did my field work in that has no arts at all. It will be my job as an education to expose my students to as many of the arts as humanly possible. I would like to take them on field trips to see plays, concerts, dance recitals, and art exhibits. I would like them to create their own works of art and share them with the class. I am very thankful for the PTA and their reflections program. I was in charge if it one year at my sons school and got to be a judge for several categories. Many of the students are so talented and have amazing abilities that need to be fostered. My husband shared this link with me today and I found it very interesting. I hope you do too. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U

Field 2

What: This week we taught two social studies lesson were we integrated the arts. One, drama, did not go well at all. The second one music, went very well. The students also performed at the UVU Veterans day program.

So What: Our first lesson was on the settlement of Jamestown. We did a jig saw lesson using the book My Jamestown. We started off by dividing the class into six groups of four and assigning each group a part of the book to read together and decided the most important parts. Then each person in the groups was given a number between one and six. All the ones got together, all the twos got together and so on. Each group member was to tell the rest of the group about their part of the book so that they would all know the whole store. Then we divide the six groups in half. The ones were suppose to be the interviewers and the twos were suppose to be any character from the book they wanted. The interviewers were suppose to ask questions and the others were suppose to answer as if they were from the book. The students hated it and there were even some tears. I think we gave them to much material to read and the groups should have staid smaller. Instead of four groups of six, we should have kept it at six groups of four. We also should have better demonstrated the interviewing section of the lesson.

Our next lesson was on the Mayflower voyage. We did the same lesson that we did in our arts integration class a few weeks ago but with the new lesson plan that we e-mailed you. We got back from UVU so late that we only had time to do the anticipation guide and book the first day. On the second day we reviewed the book and learned the song. This class loves to sing. They really got into and I over heard on student singing the song later that day.

As I said earlier the students sang for the UVU veterans day program. They got a standing ovation on the last song. They did such a good job that UVU has invited the fifth grade to come back every year and perform. They used the music and actions from the Hope of America program.

Now What: We learned a lot from our first two lessons. I know that arts integration works. I am curious to see how they do on the end of unit quiz we are going to be giving next week. I have a feeling that they will do best on the questions that have to do with the subjects were we used drama and music. I need to find out more about the Hope of America program. My partner Krystal says she did it when she was in High school but I have never heard of it before and I have had two children of my own go through the fifth grade. There is still so much to learn. Isn't that great.

# 10 Field week 1

I’m not really sure how to follow the what, so what and now what formula for this blog so I am going to just write what I observed, feel and think. I hope that is ok.

The first day of field the teacher was gone and had a sub. I didn’t notice much in the form of the students art work around the room. There were some pictures of a horn of plenty that the students had painted. As a fast finisher some of the students still had their horn of plenty that they could color. From what I have learned that isn’t really art. Maybe if the students had drawn or sketched their own picture, choosing their own median to work in. But I wasn’t there for the lesson so perhaps there was more to it.

On the second day, Thursday, the only art was during writing. The students have been learning how to write tall tales. They were suppose to do a pre-write and part of the pre-write was drawing a picture of their mane character. I hope they take it a step farther and completely illustrate their stories.

On the third day, Friday, the students practiced a song they learned that they will be performing on Monday for a school assembly and then again at UVU for the Veterans’ day program. The teacher had the words to the song pulled up on her smart board, she had them sing through the song, then she covered up some of the words and had them sing it again and the last time she had the smart board turned off and turned down the CD a little. The students sounded grate I just wish the CD didn’t have children singing on it. It would be nice to hear just my classes beautiful voices.

Next week my partner and I start teaching. On Tuesday we will be doing a lesson on the colonization of Jamestown. We plan on reading a small part of a book called Our Strange New Land. Then we are going to divide the class into groups and give them another excerpt from the book. The students will read and discuss it in their groups. Then we will divide the groups again so that each group has one person from each of the other groups in it. Each person will have a turn to tell their new group about the part that they read. Then the group will choose which three members will be characters from the book while the other three in the group will be reporters. The students will then take turns interviewing each other as the character from the book. We have a shy class so I hope we can pull this off. I’ll let you know next week how it went.

On Thursday we are teaching a lesson on the Mayflower voyage. We will start by reading the book On the Mayflower and then discuss it. I wrote some new lyrics to the tune I’ve Been Working on the Rail Road. The words are about some important thing s that happened on the ship. I hope that the song will make it easier for the students to remember some of the facts. We will also be discussing and learning the differences between rhythm, tempo and beat as we learn the song whole to part.

It should be a fun week filled with much learning for both us, our students and maybe even our cooperating teacher.

Reflection #9

What: During the process of creating this lesson I learned that writing lesson plans is much easier than writing lyrics. I have always loved music and have known of the great power that music can have in teaching. I learned from the presentation that you should always have a back up plan incase what I am doing doesn’t work. The only good thing I can say about our presentation is that we were the only group that did the beat and the rhythm separate as a class before we mixed them as a class.

So What: I have seen the importance of whole to part. I want to use music as much as possible in my classroom. I am curies to see how often our cooperating teacher will use music in her class. I need to start using music to teach write off the bat. Like anything else if I don’t use it now it will be harder to use later on.

Now What: In order to get better at writing lyrics and teaching music I need to practice and use it as much as possible and I need to start now. I hope to expose my classroom students and my own children to many of the arts. My own children listen to classical music and watch musicals. I need to sing with them much more than I do. I need to use every opportunity I can to introduce children to all types of music.

#8 Music

What: For me music is the spice of life. It is what gives life flavor, emotion and feelings. As the book states “Music is totally integrated into our lives. Joggers run with iPods, music is piped throughout airports, and CD players are basic car equipment.” In my home each of my children have their own music device, it’s sometimes hard to get anyone’s attention with those ear buds in. I am proud to say that my 16 year old has just about every genre, including classical. When I have a test I listen to classical music on my way to school. The reason that music should be a part of every child’s education is because of how it makes the brain work. Music brings the right and left brain together. Music also helps different hemispheres of the brain to overlap. In short music works the entire brain and can help to rewire it. Also music can help bring cultures together in the classroom. We had our primary program in church today. About six weeks ago a family in our ward adopted twins from Africa. They speak no English but they were able to sing the primary songs. It was wonderful to watch. No art form has more power to cognitively challenge and emotionally engage than music (Creating Meaning).

So What: Of the small knowledge that I have of music integration the things that I do plan to do in my future class are play classical music in my room before class starts and work closely with the music specialist in my school.

By playing classical music as the students are coming in, the music can create a mood of calm and an environment ready for learning. I once had a teacher that would play soft music in the background while he taught. When we had a test he would have us lay our heads on the desks and listen to the music, as he gave a review. We would then take the test with the same music softly playing in the background.

In working closely with the music specialist I can help integrate the things that she is teaching and she can help integrate the things that I am teaching.

Now What: To help prepare myself for music integration in the classroom I first hope that the three cooperating teachers I get to work with will use music so I can learn from watching them. I will take as many music integration classes as I can and I will practice on my own children. I think the most important thing I learned this week in class was how to teach a song to children. They do it completely wrong in primary. They always teach the children by having them repeat and say the words after the chorister. I actually hope I will get called to be the primary chorister now. I am also exited to use the resources that were shown to use on the website.

Reflection #7 Creative Dance Wk #2

What: Nothing has really changed about my feelings or knowledge about creative dance in the classroom. I took The Creative Dance for Elementary Students class a year ago. I know that creative dance can be used for any subject and any space. I know that creative dance, if done correctly, can reinforce new material and we need to be careful and not turn creative dance into drama. If not done correctly they may seem very similar or even the same, but they are different and bring different aspects to a lesson.

So What: One of the things I will take with me from this experience is that you need to look closely at the core. Don’t just look at dance or science, but look at both. How can you cover objectives in multiple subjects at one time? My favorite lesson was the one that Crissa, Ashley and Jason did on germs. They covered both science and dance using appropriate language for both. The activities were fun and engaging and really helped us remember haw germs can spread.

Only one of the lessons had music. I feel very strongly that music is an important part of creative dance. Music can help with the mood and feeling of the dance. It can help students learn about motion, emotion and counting. Music can help enrich the experience.

Now What: When starting out in the classroom I will start with the basic fundamentals of dance and dance language. So when I say something like “explode small and low” the students will understand what is being asked of them. Then as the students dance vocabulary increases we can more effectively integrate dance into other core curriculum. I may at times read strait from the lesson but as I become more comfortable with my lessons and abilities I won’t need to read. With practice I know that I can become not just comfortable but proficient with dance integration. I will also buy my own copy of Dee Winterton’s DVD Moving to Learn. He was amazing. I hope to use dance in my student teaching so I can start to get use to it now.

# 6 Creative Dance Wk 1

I cant believe I forgot to blog yesterday. I was so busy with conference, family in town and working on a key assignment for another class that it slipped my mind. I woke up at 2:30 this morning in a panic. Creative dance is my favorite of the arts. I have seen first hand how it can change a persons understanding including my self. When I had EDEL3400 we took a test at the biggng of the year on all the elements of dance. I bomb it so the teacher let any of us that had scored below a 60 something take it again. This time I made up a dance that I could do sitting down to help me remember everything from the test. This time I passed with flying colors.

What: When I first took the Dance for Elementary Teacher EDEL 3400. I thought it would be doing specific dance steps that the teacher showed the students. I was surprised and scared to learn that the teacher is a facilitator and the students use their own creativity and problem solving skills to create their own dance. That is exactly why creative dance is so important. It helps the students to develop the skills of problem solving, working together, it gets their creative juices flowing and helps them to more deeply understand the concepts being taught.

So What: In my preparation for next week I will get ideas from both our creative arts book and my dance for elementary teacher’s books. I will find a picture book that works well with science. Math and Science can sometimes be the hardest concepts to grasp, but when I child uses all their senses including touch and movement the ideas can penetrate more deeply. For field work it will be a little more difficult because we don’t know what the teacher wants us to do. But thank goodness creative dance just like all the other arts can be used for any subject and any grade.

Now What: To incorporate this knowledge and skill into practice I will first practice on my own children and their friends. My nine year old and twelve year old are always brutally honest with me. I love practicing on them. I also ask them what kind of things their teachers are doing with them. Finally I will ask my corporative teacher what kind of things has worked for her.

#5 Drama

What: The drama lesson plans were a lot of fun. I learned that you don't have to read the entire book then do one activity. You can read just a page or two and then do a great activity to help reinforce the text. At the end of the book you can do an activity such as alphabet challenge or jigsaw stories to see how well the students understood the story. I also learned that lessons don't always go as planned. For my part of the presentation I did "painting with words". I thought the students would add detail to Big Mamma such as the color of her hair, the way she sat or the sound of her voice. I also thought the students would add detail to the type of day it was, bring up even what time of year it might be. But they all seemed stuck on only adding detail to the type of quilt. If I had to do it again I think I would add more prompts. Before I even read I would ask them to visualize what time of year it was, how Big Mamma sat and sounded and how did Sonnie fit in to the picture. I loved the presentation with the campfire but instead of having it on the computer screen I think I would have them at first close their eye and imagine the fire, what it looks like, smells like and sounds like, then I would play the sounds of the fire and with their eyes still closed have them imagine the people around the fire with them.

It’s also very important when you are reading aloud to children to use a lot of emotion and intonation in your voice and if you can add an accent. I paid more attention to the readers that did this. I feel that the teacher’s voice is part of what draws a student into a story.

So What: I really liked the adverb game you played with us but as we learned we need to be careful of the words we let our students choose. We don’t want the people in the center of the circle to feel unsafe or be made fun of after words. I really like the painting word pictures and I will definitely try that one again. I ones saw drama used in a PE class. I can’t remember exactly how it went but the students pretended to be any animal they wanted to be, and then I asked for a few volunteers. Those students were then given a sanario such as at a wedding or grocery shopping, and then they had to be that animal in human form doing the task I gave them. Another volunteer had to guess what animal they were. It was a lot of fun. We can get some great ideas from the TV show Whose Line is it Anyway.

Now What: I think for me the best way to integrate creative drama in my teaching is to start small. I will start with an activity that I am comfortable with then as I learn how my students operate and they have come to trust me we can work on bigger projects. One way to instill drama would be at the fifth grade level social studies. At my children’s school the fifth graders choose an important historical figure. They spend several weeks researching this person then at the end of the unit they do a wax museum. The students dress up in costume as their famous person, they can also add props. They stand frozen until someone comes by their desk and pushes the button on their desk. Then they come to life, telling the audience some interesting or important facts about their person. It is a lot of fun for everyone.

I will also watch veteran teachers that I know use art integration in their classrooms to get ideas and ask questions of.

This was a really fun unit.

Reflection #4 Drama

I have a hard time following the what, so what, now what formula. Tonight I am just going to write about what I know and have learned.

I don't remember drama ever being used in the classroom when I was a child. What I do remember was getting very much involved in drama in Jr. High. I know that this was what the book called product oriented drama and not process drama,but it really helped me to gain confidence and self esteem. I was very shy all through my elementary, Jr. High and High school years. Drama "gave me a voice." I remember when I was in 8th grade the most popular boy in school tried out for the school musical, he was a ninth grader. It was the first time ever that a "jock" tried out. The play was Annie Get Your Gun. I played a saloon girl, he had the male lead. In one of his songs we were suppose to flirt with him. I went for it. I kissed him. I never would have done that in real life and I never did talk to him. But I could honestly say that I kissed the most popular boy in school. In real life I was timid, shy and reserved. On stage I was free. I could be anyone or anything I wanted to be.

Over the past few years I have had the opportunity to see drama used in a few different ways with students. As a Cub Scout leader, every summer we take the boys to day camp. The first thing they do is learn the camp rules. The older boys act out the rules, both braking them and keeping them. I thought it was just a fun way to introduce the rules. I didn't realize then that it was a way to help the boys learn. Two years ago I substitute thought a class that had an Autistic student. The teacher left a lesson plan for me, to read the book " I Feel Silly and Other Emotions" by Jamie Lee Curtis and she wanted me to discuss emotions with the students. As I read the book I noticed that the Autistic child didn't seem to be paying attention. I figured that the purpose of this lesson was to help him. Children with Autism have a hard time reading peoples faces and understanding emotions or how to control their own. I know this because I have a son with Aspergers syndrome ( high functioning Autism). The teacher didn't leave any guide lines for the discussion so I took some liberties with it. First I had the students show me the different emotions with their faces. I noticed that the Autistic student was now watching his fellow classmates from a distance. After that I had the students stand up and show me using their whole bodies what each emotion would look like. Now the Autistic child was completely engrossed in watching his fellow classmates. Then we discussed how everyone has felt everyone of those emotions some time or another and how it's OK to feel angry, sad, scared or frustrated. The important thing is how we deal with our emotions. Then we discussed what would be some expectable ways to handle anger, sadness, fear or frustrations. It was a lot of fun and it was exciting to see the Autistic boys curiosity peeked.

Last year when I was doing my field work for my intro. to education class. I twice got to see drama used in the classroom. The first time was for literature circles. The students are put into groups of five students and assigned a book to read, they are each given assignments that they rotate through such as connector, vocab, artist and summery. The teacher has several individual activities for them to do for her to make assessments. One of the activities is for a student to convince the rest of his group to act out a seen from the book. The student leads the group, assigning parts, costumes and props. Then they put on a performance for us. It was great. The second time there was also another student from BYU doing field work. I was not there the day before so I'm not sure of the objective of her lesson but she broke the class up into groups then assigned each group a scene from a Shakespearian play. The students then had a certain amount of time to come up with costumes, props, decided who was doing what parts then practice. They performed the next day. That's when I was there. I was very impressed by the performances, especially when I found out that they had only started the day before. One group was particularly creative. It was a scene, I think, is from Macbeth. Were three witches our making a potion or a brew. The girls were leaning over a cauldron that had homemade root-beer and dry ice for special affects. After their performance everyone got a cup of root-beer.

I have always thought of drama as being an important part of learning. It gives students a chances to come out of their shells and explore other people, emotions and situations. What better way to learn about oneself and others.

#3 Visual Arts

What: In class we learned to look at art a different way. We learned to look at different pieces of art by proportion, balance, variety, rhythm, emphases, and unity. In the past when I have looked at art I have always noticed the use of light and there seems to be one color that is different than the rest to draw your eye in. But I never gave much thought to the other principals. I am going to go to the exhibit on campus and I am going to see if I can find the different principals and elements that the artist used. Also, after reading chapter seven and getting some wonderful ideas for teaching art I want to see what emotions the art brings out for me. I liked the activity in 7.2 for the landscapes. Thit is the activity I'm am going to do when I visit the exhibit.

I love children's picture books and have several in my home. Some times I will look at a book and think, I can't believe this illustrator has never won a Caldecott. When I was a child I didn't always enjoy museums. A matter of fact, when I was in 10 grade the drama club went to New York city for spring brake. We saw a play or musical a day, but in between we took in as much of the city as we could. Our chaperons wanted to go to several museums but all we wanted to do was hang out in Central Park and people watch. Both are beneficial. Picture books are a great way to introduce children to a verity of amazing art forms by artists from all over the world, even if they can't go to a museum . There are all kinds of medians used form woodcuts to collage to water colors. Children become exposed to great art and artists and they get to hold the art and take as much time as they want to explore it.

So What: The best way for me to effectively prepare to teach about art, artists, and their techniques and styles is to learn about them my self. I can take classes like the Arts in Education conference that will be on campus Oct. 1, visit local museums and art exhibits, and find out more about the life and studies of famous artists.

Now What: I am terrible at drawing and painting and so I have steered away from visual arts, but after reading chapter 7 I remembered the wonderful art teacher I had in fourth through sixth grade. We did things like puppet heads out of paper mache, clay statues that we sculpted, she fired and we painted and she refired. I always looked forward to her class. As a scout leader one of the favorite activities of the boys is to go up the canyon, collect leaves, pine cones and anything else they can find. Then we come back and make shadow art. We take a regular piece of paper and arrange our findings on the paper to make a picture. Then we slide are picture into a manila folder that has a piece of blue print paper in it and slide our regular paper out, we open the folder and let it expose to the sun for a few minutes, we roll up the paper and place it in a jar that has some ammonia in the bottom. The fumes bring the picture to life. When the picture is done we glue are original findings onto the first blank paper. We now have two pieces of art.

When we were doing our art project in class I was a little frustrated at first because I couldn't think of anything to draw that I was later going watercolor paint. Final I saw the picture of a canyon that my teacher had out that inspired me. When it was all said and done I really liked my picture. As a teacher I will have different kinds of art displayed through out my class room to help inspire my students.

As I read the section on clay I was thinking about my oldest son. The section said that kneading the clay helps to develop finger strength. When my son was in seventh grade we had an IEP. One of the things that both myself and his English teacher noticed was that he had a difficult time writing for long periods of time. It became painful for him. His teacher said that over the years she has notice, especially in her male students, that writing was physically painful for them. She said that boys tend to develop the large muscle motor skills but lack in the fine motor skills. Working with clay could really help with this problem. I might have the students sculpt with clay while I do teacher read aloud. They can sculpt something that comes to mind from the story. I also really like the idea from the yarn activity. I could have students make their own spring baskets (Easter baskets) then we could fill them with dirt, plant grass seed and observe what happens.

As I read chapter seven I had so many ideas of what I would like to try in integrating art into some of the core standards and I wrote those ideas down in my book for future reference.

I have a fail proof recipe for play dough that I love. It is different than the ones in the text. If you would like it let me know.

#2 Visual Arts

What I have learned so far in class is it's OK if you'r not good at visual art as long as you try. At my first station I was concerned about what my picture should look like or fallowing the directions exactly but as I got in to it I wasn't worried and ideas started coming to me. All of my own children are very artistic and I know that the best way for them to learn is visually and hands on. I have always planned on using art of all forms in my teaching. So What: Two of my children have learning disabilities. One has communications disorder and the other has aspergers syndrome. One of the things I discovered with them was when they read they do not form pictures in their heads of what is being read. Through my research I learned a technique that I tried on them and it really worked. I would read a poem or a short story, as I read they would draw a picture of what I was reading. This seemed to really help them develop the skill to see what is on the written pages. This worked so well with my children that as I have substitute taught I have done it with the classes I have gotten to work with during teacher read aloud. I feel this helps the students stay focused on the book and shows off awesome works of art. Now What – Last semester when I did field work for my intro to ed. class I had the privilege of observing a wonderful sixth grade teacher. The students were working on science. She gave each student a map of the starts with the constellation Orion the most prominent. They were also given a paper that had the distance of each of the starts on it and a conversion chart of centimeter. She gave each of the students a long string, ruler, and several beads. The students measured the string for each star in centimeter,cut it, tied on a bead and then put it on the appropriate star. When they were done , the teacher had them tape their star map under their desks. Then they laid under their desks and looked at their picture. After some time they wrote in their science journals about their observations of the star map. The teacher was trying to get the students to realize that even though the stars may look like they are right next to each other, they are actually thousands of miles apart. For this activities the students worked on science, math and art. When I was in second grade, we were learning about Hawaii I remember making a salt play dough replica of the islands that we stuck to a piece of paper to put in a book. Another time I remember in about sixth grade doing a report on the winter Olympics and making a collage. I still have these items in a box. The lessons that have stuck with me the most have been the ones that I got to be creative in. This is the kind of teacher I want to be. The best things I can do to prepare to be that kind of teacher is to read our class book and refer back to it in future years. Also I need to observe teachers that are already doing arts integration in their classrooms and lastly with the internet we have access to information world wide to help us. We are not alone.

Teaching In, Through, With & About the Arts

What: School for me was a long time ago. It's hard to remember specific lessons taught. I do remember third grade at Orem Elementary. I had a teacher by the name of Ms. Hall. We were doing a unit on Hawaii. I still have my finished product in a box of keep sakes. It's a booklet that we compiled of all our work. One page is a salt play dough replica of the islands, another page is a paper I wrote about one of the kings, another page has facts about the different islands and I have a lei that I made for a party that we had at the end of the unit. Even though I don't remember the songs now but I do remember learning some. When I was in fourth grade at Westmore Elementary in Davenport Iowa I remember an after school program that was creative dance. Other than that I don't remember the arts actually being involved as part of the chore curriculum. We did have music and art and for one semester every year for PE we had a unit of square dancing but I don't remember them ever over lapping into other classes. I was however always involved in dance, music, and theater after school. One of the things I learned from my reading was how closely the main teacher should work with the specialty teachers. When I was in school in Iowa my elementary was set up very similarly to the Jr. High. I had a home room teacher that taught all the English subjects (spelling, literature,and writing). That was the first half of the day. The second half of the day we traveled. We had a different teacher for each subject ( math, science, art, music, social studies and PE) Each of these teachers had there Bachelors in the subject they were teaching. In the school district that my children are in the specialty teachers (music,art and computers) only need to have a high school degree. Many of them have no more of a back ground in the area they are teaching than I do. That worries me. I have been a strong believer of the arts as part of the every day learning process. When I have discussed this with my children's teachers they say there just isn't the time to get it all done and prepare for the end of the year testing. They are missing the boat. Integrating the arts will help the students to understand and retain the information they have learned which in turn will help them do better on the tests.
So What: I have always enjoyed varying aspects of the arts. I love music, dance and theater. I am not very good at drawing but enjoy doodling and coloring helps me to relax. Even though I love dance, I always did jazz, tap, ballet and ballroom, all beautiful styles of dance but they have very set steps and music. I learned to follow directions but not how to be creative. A couple of semesters ago I took dance for Elementary teachers. I thought it would be an easy class but it pushed me completely out of my comfort zone. I loved it and hated it at the same time. It was a great experience and in my opinion should be a required class for all education majors, not just an elective for elementary education majors. My favorite teacher and least favorite teacher are one in the same. Mr. Bowmen, ninth grade English, did not believe in giving different spelling lists for different ability levels. We all did the top list. I have a form of dyslexia and have always struggled with spelling, it is something I continue to work on and try to improve. Thank goodness for spell check. Also the first semester was diagramming sentences. I hated it. But Mr. Bowmen never gave up on me. He always pushed me to do better and study harder. One time I got a 100% on a spelling test, he was so proud of me that he took my test and showed it to all my other teachers. The second semester we became good friends. We studied literature. It turned out to be a strong area for me and I was able to really shine. As a teacher I want to get to know each of my students and find out what their strong points are then build on those to help them in other areas. I also want to take as many continuing education classes as I can that focus on the arts so that I can become a more affective teacher.
Now What: This class and my dance for elementary teachers are the first steps in preparing to integrate the arts. I also need to learn from veteran teachers that implement AI in their classrooms and I need to take continuing education classes. As a substitute teacher I have had the opportunity to add some creative movement to a lesson plan the teacher had me do. I was to read the book " I Feel Silly" By Jamie Lee Curtis and then discuss the book and emotions with the students. When we were done reading the book I went through several different emotions and had the students show me with their faces what that emotion would look like, then I went through the same emotions and had the students show me what that emotion would look like with their bodies. One of the students in the class had aspergers syndrome. When we read the book he was not interested at all. When the students used their faces, he was somewhat interested in what they were doing but when the other students used their bodies he was completely captivated. It was wonderful to see. I also notice during singing time he did not participate if the students just sat on the floor but if the song had movement to it, he had a blast. I want to find ways to engage all of my students and I know the way to do this is through AI.