Education Closet
I came across an arts integration site called Education
Closet. It has so much in it. It has resources
that I think would be helpful to any teacher interested with arts integration. Even
me who’s almost done with the arts integration training find the materials
useful. I am leaning towards integrating
movement so I checked what they have. I found a detailed instruction of the
Mirroring Technique taught by Deb before. I found The Geometry of Dance lesson which uses
the Mirroring Technique was used to review the definition of symmetry. The Geometry of Dance is a great lesson on
symmetry and I believe this would be great too for middle school and elementary
grades.
There are other arts integrated lessons in math but most of
them use ipad. What I liked most is their article on Technology Apps for the
Arts which lists apps for arts integration, apps for arts and apps for music. I
can’t wait to look at those in the list especially Van Gogh’s Dream which lets
look at each painting, explore the history behind the art and art techniques
such as use of complimentary colors.
Education Closet has a STEAM portal. It’s my first time to
hear about it. It stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, the Arts and Mathematics.
http://illuminations.nctm.org/
For me this is a very good site for math content. It has lessons involving activities and projects that I'm sure could be modified to make them arts integrated.
http://www.glogster.com/
I just thought of sharing this with you. This is a website where you can create 'glogs' online multimedia posters with texts, photos, videos, graphics, sounds, drawings and data attachments. You may pay but you can access a free version. I used it in one of my technology class before.
Dan (Music) Posting
ReplyDeletehttp://www.sfskids.org
I spent a lot of time exploring everything I could in this San Francisco Symphony web site for kids. Although not an arts integrated web site, it has lots of interactivity resources for engaging students in classical music rather than merely listening to it. It is divided into five sections:
(1) Discover – Allows student to gather lots of information about composers, instruments, and specific classical music. Con: Not interactive, but present a huge amount of pieces in the music section. This would not be engaging for an entire class to view.
(2) Listen – Great sampling of good quality music, but again not very interactive.
(3) *Play – One of the best parts program, allows student to play one of two games: Star Catcher or Mood Journey. Mood Journey has the student actually select verbal descriptions about how the music makes them feel and the scenery changes accordingly. Star Catcher involves the student moving the rabbit to catch stars while listening to quality classical music. I think Star Catcher could work in the elementary grades as a whole group activity where one student leads the rabbit, as the visual stimulation is very engaging. Some movement good be added as the rest of the class waves arms up and down.
(4) *Perform – It’s called an Instrument Garden, which allows students to choose from a vast variety of orchestra instruments and not only virtually play them but also zoom in on them in detail.
(5) *Conductor – Students follow the star on the screen with their right hand to perform music in 2/4, ¾, or 4/4 time, depending upon the selection chosen.
They also see an eagle conductor the music as they follow (they can also lead the conducting).
(6) **Composer – What an amazing tool for teaching students to compose
music! It allows student to select from some famous tunes such as Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, Ode to Joy, and Copland’s Simple Gifts. This immerses the student in musical notation as they instantly can hear the music as they see the note being played flashes. A whole class could first take turns composing by gradually changing one of these preset tunes, one note at a time. I like this portion the most because allows students to be creative while gradually learning the written language of music simultaneously. (And unlike Finale, it is more user-friendly and engaging for kids.)
http://www.mediacollege.com/audio/tone/dtmf.html
You can download a flash touch-tone keypad simulator here. Used in the Melodies and Math lesson from the Arts Edge web site. (Note: Sue and I agree does not offer sufficient mathematical content to be considered an arts-integrated lesson. Perhaps with some tweaking though, it could work, and then you could have lots of student engagement from this keypad simulator. )
http://www.mightybook.com
Again not an arts-integrated site, but it does have a large number of story songs, such as Woodpecker Knocking, and songs to teach letters to children (“Big Letters are Marching Along,” using the tune from “The Caissons Go Rollin’ Along”.) I like how it promotes reading fluency. It does have an “Art and Music” section that juxtaposes a famous painter’s artwork with a famous classical composer’s music in a slideshow format. But the best part is probably that each song has engaging animation to go with it. I see it as assisting with integrating ELA and Music, especially with K-2.
Emmanuela,
ReplyDeleteThanks so much for sharing the above math related web site and the Education Closet site. At the Education Closet, web site I also came across a Music Strategy that could be really helpful for those teachers who are very cautious about integrating music in your room. Under "Strategies" and then "Music,"
there is a short video explaining this strategy: What's Your Name? The main idea is that teacher has students consider how they would say their name and consider the tempo (fast/slow), rhythm (would be demonstrated), and approximate pitch (Would you go up or down a little?). Saying one's name is such a natural activity for most people that it helps students relate musical concepts to their own lives.
You are welcome Dan. I saw the lesson that you were talking about and I am planning to look at it again. I am not comfortable teaching music but that one looks easy to teach.
DeleteHello everyone! My name is Susan Riley and I am the founder and CEO of EducationCloset.com - I'm so happy that you've found our website and that it's a helpful resource to you.
ReplyDeleteMy team and I would be happy to assist you on your arts integration journey in whatever way possible. Since it seems that you are really looking for high-quality lesson plans right now, here is a link to 3 fully-developed lesson plans, as well as a lesson seed (1-pager) with an assessment rubric: https://www.dropbox.com/s/51shibex7tbxro1/Sample%20Lessons.zip
Additionally, please keep in mind that we offer a wide variety of supports - free daily articles, monthly live master classes, online classes in arts integration and Common Core and the Arts, and a summer Arts Integration and STEAM conference - all online so you can access it from anywhere. Please let us know if you are looking for a resource or would like to participate in any of our offerings and we would be happy to help you. You can reach me directly at susan@educationcloset.com with any questions - welcome to our community!
Thank you Susan. I will keep you and your website in mind. I was very impressed with your site. I like very much your Technology for Arts article. I don't have ipads for my class but I can not wait to explore those apps for myself.
DeleteHoly Moly!! I loved this website! (Education Closet) Mostly because it was user friendly, helped me understand more about arts integration, and it gave me more ideas for lesson plans. I'm glad that other people in our grant have stumbled upon it because I think it is very relevant to what we are trying to accomplish. Then as I'm reading through the comments on this post, I see that the CEO wrote us and shared even more valuable information! Love it!!
ReplyDeleteAfter reading the comments, I am going to have to look at Education Closet. Any ideas for lesson plans, integration, and fun ideas for the classroom is awesome. Thanks for the ideas.
ReplyDelete