Where am I heading? Well, I'm heading in an artsy direction. : ) I feel like I have a solid foundation on the basic principles of art and can now move on from there. I am headed in the direction of allowing all children to have an equal opportunity to explore their creativity and expressing themselves through art. Art can be a great way to help students come out of their shell, to build friendships, explore new things, find hidden talents, and my favorite, bring equality in to the classroom.
I will continue to find resources and build on my arts journal. I want to eventually get to know my students well enough to know what works and what doesn't and be brave enough to try new things. I want to be an example of how the arts can change and mold your life. Music did that for me. It was because of people in my life like my parents and music teachers who opened the door to the arts. It was because of programs like 4-H that provided art classes and design. It was because I had people in my life who appreciated the arts and understood the benefit. I still have those people in my life. I will be the teacher that opens that door for my students and shows them the way.
Reflection #15 Where am I heading with the Arts and Arts Integration?
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Reflection #14
I have had the most success in this classroom in building on the things I know and learning new techniques. I have learned a lot specifically in the visual arts department as well as the creative drama. I have realized as this semester has progressed that I have a lot of great talents that I can share with my future class. I don't want to be a teacher that learns all of this amazing material and seen the positive effect it has in a classroom and feel like I don't have time to do it. Integrating the arts is very possible. There are many resources available to teachers and a lot of it is free. There are workshops all over and grants that can be applied for. My eyes have been opened. I am more informed. I have changed from a person who loves the arts and probably would have incorporated as often as I could to someone who will go out of my way to make sure that the arts are being used in my classroom. I have become an art activist.
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Reflection #13
The final week of student teaching was awesome. I am going to miss those sweet fourth graders so much! Since our teaching portion was over we got to focus on helping them with guided reading groups and their current writing projects. Guided reading has often been one of my favorite parts of the day. During the guided reading time I would help the students in my reading group with a particular book. Throughout the reading the students would stop and write on sticky notes their predictions, connections to real the real world, summaries, vocabulary words, questions, answers, and many other things. My favorite part about it is their interest in reading and how much they love to tell you their opinions and express their excitement. Since there are thirty one students in the class it is often difficult for Mrs. Schino to meet with all of the groups every day so it was nice to be able to help her share the load.
For their writing assignments they wrote about a turkey named Patricia and her greedy owner named Pete. They were in partner groups and one of them would write from Pete's perspective and the other would write from Patricia's perspective. At the end of their writing they made a book with personalized pictures on every page. Their stories turned out so great and it was wonderful to just be a part of their writing process. I got to help them edit and revise their drafts and see their work from beginning to end. This is the only other activity during the week that Katie and I got to help with a project that integrated the arts.
This field experience has been such an amazing opportunity. I have learned so much in my experience with those great fourth graders. My experience with the arts in the classroom has been so great. I have come away with a lot of great ideas and ways to incorporate the arts in every core curriculum. I have also seen how much the children love it and how beneficial it is. It gets their brain stimulated and going so they are better prepared mentally for retaining information. Integrating the arts has also helped me see how excited the students get when they are introduced to a new topic. Again, I am a great believer in the arts and I can't wait to use it in my own classroom when that day comes.
For their writing assignments they wrote about a turkey named Patricia and her greedy owner named Pete. They were in partner groups and one of them would write from Pete's perspective and the other would write from Patricia's perspective. At the end of their writing they made a book with personalized pictures on every page. Their stories turned out so great and it was wonderful to just be a part of their writing process. I got to help them edit and revise their drafts and see their work from beginning to end. This is the only other activity during the week that Katie and I got to help with a project that integrated the arts.
This field experience has been such an amazing opportunity. I have learned so much in my experience with those great fourth graders. My experience with the arts in the classroom has been so great. I have come away with a lot of great ideas and ways to incorporate the arts in every core curriculum. I have also seen how much the children love it and how beneficial it is. It gets their brain stimulated and going so they are better prepared mentally for retaining information. Integrating the arts has also helped me see how excited the students get when they are introduced to a new topic. Again, I am a great believer in the arts and I can't wait to use it in my own classroom when that day comes.
Sunday, November 21, 2010
Reflection #12
This week we only taught two lessons so it could have been more low key but we also had our observations on those days. So far we've taught for seven days! One of the days this week incorporated our digital story about Utah and our kids loved it! We also had each of them make a paper quilt square with a specific Utah symbol assigned to them. They did an amazing job and really took pride in their artwork. After Katie and I assembled it and added our own quilt squares, we hung it on the class bulletin board and it looked beautiful.
For the quilt square activity they were each given a fact card about their specific symbol. Then the drew their symbol on their quilt square with a title and listed one or two of their favorite facts. It was a great way to apply their knowlwdge and assess their understanding of the topic through art.
The following day we taught about landforms and made salt dough maps. Note to self, send a not home to the parents to make the salt dough and do not attempt to make enough for 31 kids! Lesson learned. It was an awesome project though. The salt dough was color coded to match one fo the three landforms in Utah. I built a sample one under the document camera as they followed along. They had a blast and I could overhear some of them saying how much fun they were having. It was a great way to teach about landforms and incorporate art. The teacher wasn't going to have time to make the salt maps so I'm really glad we had the opportunity to make them with the students.
I will definitely do this activity again if I teach fourth grade. It's amazing to me hoe much art can encourage learning and enhance it. Again, it was a great tool to use as a post assessment to check for understanding. All of them turned out fantastically and it was totally worth making 93 balls of dough for (each child got three different colors of dough). I'm just a fan of art. I'm a fan of giving students the opportunity to stretch their brains and use art to learn. It has been a great tool to have for Social Studies. I didn't like Social Studies in elementary school and I think if a little more hands on art would have been involved I would have remembered more. Our brains remember visuals much more than words and art allows you to do that.
For the quilt square activity they were each given a fact card about their specific symbol. Then the drew their symbol on their quilt square with a title and listed one or two of their favorite facts. It was a great way to apply their knowlwdge and assess their understanding of the topic through art.
The following day we taught about landforms and made salt dough maps. Note to self, send a not home to the parents to make the salt dough and do not attempt to make enough for 31 kids! Lesson learned. It was an awesome project though. The salt dough was color coded to match one fo the three landforms in Utah. I built a sample one under the document camera as they followed along. They had a blast and I could overhear some of them saying how much fun they were having. It was a great way to teach about landforms and incorporate art. The teacher wasn't going to have time to make the salt maps so I'm really glad we had the opportunity to make them with the students.
I will definitely do this activity again if I teach fourth grade. It's amazing to me hoe much art can encourage learning and enhance it. Again, it was a great tool to use as a post assessment to check for understanding. All of them turned out fantastically and it was totally worth making 93 balls of dough for (each child got three different colors of dough). I'm just a fan of art. I'm a fan of giving students the opportunity to stretch their brains and use art to learn. It has been a great tool to have for Social Studies. I didn't like Social Studies in elementary school and I think if a little more hands on art would have been involved I would have remembered more. Our brains remember visuals much more than words and art allows you to do that.
Reflection #11
Well, our Compass Rose Lesson was awesome. I was so nervous to start teaching but I think it went really well. We taught a lesson every day this week in Social Studies. The students loves our rap about the Compass Rose and I think it will help them remember what it's all about. We also had each students color and make their own Compass Rose. The teacher had the handout and let us use it in our lesson plan. The students enjoyed making a Compass Rose to their individual liking and they were learning as they went along.
Throughout the week we taught them about latitude and longitude, map legends and symbols, and played a review game. Katie and I got to give the students a test based on what only we had taught them since we taught the whole unit. Each student also had to know each of the six surrounding states of Utah so I made up a rap to help them remember it. It goes:
There are six states all around
Some are up and some are down
Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado too,
New Mexico and Arizona how about you?
Then there's Nevada, he is to the West.
And those are the six states for the test.
They really enjoyed the rap and rhyming has always been a great tool to help me remember important information so I wanted to see if it would help them. Most of the students remembered the six states or only missed one or two on the final test. I was so proud of them!
From this week's experience I've learned a lot. I want to be able to use the talents I have to help my students learn. Rhyming has come very easy to me and I love to write short songs or poems about people or topics. I want to incorporate and encourage that in my classroom. I also wanted to express how much I know art integration is very possible in core curriculum. It often doesn't take very much extra time to incorporate it and the students learn so much more becuase they are engaged and doing hands on activities.
Throughout the week we taught them about latitude and longitude, map legends and symbols, and played a review game. Katie and I got to give the students a test based on what only we had taught them since we taught the whole unit. Each student also had to know each of the six surrounding states of Utah so I made up a rap to help them remember it. It goes:
There are six states all around
Some are up and some are down
Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado too,
New Mexico and Arizona how about you?
Then there's Nevada, he is to the West.
And those are the six states for the test.
They really enjoyed the rap and rhyming has always been a great tool to help me remember important information so I wanted to see if it would help them. Most of the students remembered the six states or only missed one or two on the final test. I was so proud of them!
From this week's experience I've learned a lot. I want to be able to use the talents I have to help my students learn. Rhyming has come very easy to me and I love to write short songs or poems about people or topics. I want to incorporate and encourage that in my classroom. I also wanted to express how much I know art integration is very possible in core curriculum. It often doesn't take very much extra time to incorporate it and the students learn so much more becuase they are engaged and doing hands on activities.
Reflection #10
My first week with field experience was pretty good. We met our cooperating teacher (Mrs. Schino) and her frouth grade class on Tuesday and observed them for a little bit. Mrs. Schino is from the East coast and not afraid to speak her mind. I was a little bit nervous about that at first but not so much anymore. Katie and I were assigned to Willow Springs Elementary. It's in Draper in a very nice neighborhood. It is a very nice elementary school and I can already tell there is a lot of parent support.
The first week was strictly observation (thank goodness). I wanted to be able to see how the class functioned and how the dynamics were. This week in Social Studies they learned about where they live including the planet, hemisphere, conitinent, state, county, and city. Mrs. Schino has put us in charge of teaching her students map skills. I'm a little nervous because I'm not an expert in that area but I'll learn a lot with them. Fourth grade is the year you make salt maps of the state so Katie and I are pretty excited about that. It's one of our favorite things from fourth grade.
Our first lesson next week will be about the Compass Rose. We are going to incorporate a small art project and introduce the topic with a rap. We think this will help engage the students. I know the students really enjoy art and they have the opportunity to have an art lesson every Thursday from a separate art teacher. I think they are very blessed to have that opportunity because not every school has that luxury. The art teacher also happens to be one of the student's in Mrs. Schino's class' mom.
For right now Katie and I have those main ideas for integrating the arts. Mrs. Schino has been using the arts in her persuasuve writing assigmnent about turkeys. There are some very artistic children in the class. Integrating the arts into our lesson plans will be very possible and I think the students will really enjoy them.
The first week was strictly observation (thank goodness). I wanted to be able to see how the class functioned and how the dynamics were. This week in Social Studies they learned about where they live including the planet, hemisphere, conitinent, state, county, and city. Mrs. Schino has put us in charge of teaching her students map skills. I'm a little nervous because I'm not an expert in that area but I'll learn a lot with them. Fourth grade is the year you make salt maps of the state so Katie and I are pretty excited about that. It's one of our favorite things from fourth grade.
Our first lesson next week will be about the Compass Rose. We are going to incorporate a small art project and introduce the topic with a rap. We think this will help engage the students. I know the students really enjoy art and they have the opportunity to have an art lesson every Thursday from a separate art teacher. I think they are very blessed to have that opportunity because not every school has that luxury. The art teacher also happens to be one of the student's in Mrs. Schino's class' mom.
For right now Katie and I have those main ideas for integrating the arts. Mrs. Schino has been using the arts in her persuasuve writing assigmnent about turkeys. There are some very artistic children in the class. Integrating the arts into our lesson plans will be very possible and I think the students will really enjoy them.
Saturday, October 30, 2010
Reflection #9
I had been looking forward to this section of Creative Arts all semester. Like I've said before, I love music. I had so much fun coming up with a song to teach the class that coincided with the book we chose. This project came the easiest to me and I've learned a lot about the abilities I have in music and can implement in the classroom. I really enjoy writing rhymes and want my future students to be able to use music to create poetry, write stories, learn math, and science, and any other curriculum they can. I know how much music has helped me and I want to encourage that in anyone I can.
From the presentation I learned the importance of dress rehearsal. : ) I didn't even think about having all of those papers and the affect it would have and distraction it would be on the lesson. I should have thought about the mechanics of the lesson but it didn't cross my mind. My lesson is learned and I will know that better for next time. It was great to have an actual instrument during our presentation as well and I would like to be able to invite guests to come share their musical talents at least once or twice during a school year.
My next step is to continue to use everything I have learned in this class so far as best as I can. Music is one of my favorite arts and it can be incorporated into anything. It crosses over to dance, art, drama, and everything in between. I want to be an advocate for the arts and continue to learn what I can so so I can enrich my classroom with them
From the presentation I learned the importance of dress rehearsal. : ) I didn't even think about having all of those papers and the affect it would have and distraction it would be on the lesson. I should have thought about the mechanics of the lesson but it didn't cross my mind. My lesson is learned and I will know that better for next time. It was great to have an actual instrument during our presentation as well and I would like to be able to invite guests to come share their musical talents at least once or twice during a school year.
My next step is to continue to use everything I have learned in this class so far as best as I can. Music is one of my favorite arts and it can be incorporated into anything. It crosses over to dance, art, drama, and everything in between. I want to be an advocate for the arts and continue to learn what I can so so I can enrich my classroom with them
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