Monday, March 3, 2014
http://www.teachartathome.com/block-printing-made-easy.html
This one is fun for closing a unit about ocean life.
Friday, February 28, 2014
The Power of Storytelling Through Song
Elizabeth RUDNICK Kindergarten Rose Warren ES
Below are some sites that I found helpful:
http://www.learner.org/resources/discipline-arts.html
http://www.pinterest.com/edutopia/arts-integration
http://artsedge.kennedy-center.org
http://www.artseveryday.org/Educators
I viewed the video Music and Memory: Exploring the World of Music via the Annenberg site. Ethnomusicologist Ernest D. Brown narrates a section about the Griot in the Kora Tradition from West Africa. These musicians are considered the Storytellers/the historians of the tribe. Originally, they sang and performed for their Kings to help their leaders remember their history. But, now they are storytelling to the whole community. I see them as musical teachers, teaching their community about their past, their leaders, their heroes. They are also teaching the community, both children and adults about morals. Some of their lyrics are: Let's enjoy this world because this world belongs to everybody, and one day we must die." Through their music, information begins to be passed on to the next generation, verbally, and non verbally, opening them up emotionally and deeply. In childhood, those songs are learned and eventually remembered and understood. I really want to examine this concept more, and implement this into my classroom. Before cultures could write down their history, storytellers spoke about it, passing it down to the children. Before my kindergarteners can read and write fluently, they too rely on storytelling as an oral language. Integrating music to the process, like the Griot, could only deepen the students understanding. I tend to sing in my classroom to capture my students attention, to redirect, or emphasize a point. I also encourage the students to sing, echo my words. I think I may be on to something here.
Below are some sites that I found helpful:
http://www.learner.org/resources/discipline-arts.html
http://www.pinterest.com/edutopia/arts-integration
http://artsedge.kennedy-center.org
http://www.artseveryday.org/Educators
I viewed the video Music and Memory: Exploring the World of Music via the Annenberg site. Ethnomusicologist Ernest D. Brown narrates a section about the Griot in the Kora Tradition from West Africa. These musicians are considered the Storytellers/the historians of the tribe. Originally, they sang and performed for their Kings to help their leaders remember their history. But, now they are storytelling to the whole community. I see them as musical teachers, teaching their community about their past, their leaders, their heroes. They are also teaching the community, both children and adults about morals. Some of their lyrics are: Let's enjoy this world because this world belongs to everybody, and one day we must die." Through their music, information begins to be passed on to the next generation, verbally, and non verbally, opening them up emotionally and deeply. In childhood, those songs are learned and eventually remembered and understood. I really want to examine this concept more, and implement this into my classroom. Before cultures could write down their history, storytellers spoke about it, passing it down to the children. Before my kindergarteners can read and write fluently, they too rely on storytelling as an oral language. Integrating music to the process, like the Griot, could only deepen the students understanding. I tend to sing in my classroom to capture my students attention, to redirect, or emphasize a point. I also encourage the students to sing, echo my words. I think I may be on to something here.
Discussion on Websites
- http://www.neiu.edu/~middle/Modules/science%20mods/amazon%20components/AmazonComponents3.html
- http://www.aep-arts.org/
- http://www.artsedsearch.org/
- http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/
- http://nationsreportcard.gov/reading_math_2013/#/achievement-gaps
I focused tremendously on the theory behind arts education, because it is very important to me to understand the movement toward arts integration from a historical standpoint. I asked the question, why now? How did we get to a situation of such poor reputation of educational achievement in the first place? What indicators are leading the creation of Arts Integration? If Arts Integration is an attempt to solve problems indicated by national assessments, then it is important to know what these issues are.
The NEIU website had some lesson plan suggestions, and also led me to the other sites. AEParts is not really arts integration, although it does have a section for Arts and the Common Core. It also led me to the artsedsearch.org website. This website had many studies on there about various advantages that arts bring to the schools. AEParts also lead me to research what the NAEP test is and how it works. Interesting stuff, and it had sample questions. Now, I can use them to prepare students for the kind of tests that are rating our schools.
The NAEP results reflect well what CCSD struggles with as a whole. However, one concern that I noticed was that while across the board the math test scores were getting better, the gaps were only getting slightly smaller. Why is still a mystery to me, but hopefully over time the underlying causes of these issues will become apparent. One the strengths of Arts Integration is that it does seek to solve these issues by creating meaning in a common core subject for a student by integrating art with it.
Thursday, February 27, 2014
The Whole Schools Initiative
The Whole Schools Initiative
I found this website from the education closet. What I liked
about this website is the fact that they received a contract to receive
professional development from the Kennedy Center. They utilize a Universal
Design for Learning in order to inform and connect learning for all kinds of
learners. I particularly liked the fact that they share their integrated lesson
plans in a wide range of subjects.
I found some really great websites, but I still think that
my first go-to site will be Arts Edge. I
think that site is remarkable and has strong lesson plans that applicable to
each greade.
Surprisingly
I found out that Scholastic.com has a strategies for integrating the arts on
the their site. They have it broken down
by grade level, lesson plans, unit plans, and articles on the importance of the
arts. It is by no means anything close
to the ArtsEdge, but it is something that is out there. My big win was finding http://artsintegration.com/ They have
all sorts of information for teachers.
They have Arts Integration ideas for literacy, math, common core
alignment and even STEM!!! I found this website: http://artplantaetoday.com/2011/09/30/why-the-arts-improve-content-retention/ and it was interesting because it is a site
that is arts integrated, but It’s all botanical.
http://www.incredibleart.org/lessons/elem/integration.html
is another site that I found where there are lessons and activities for all
grade levels and genres of art. This
site was the best one that I found outside of the ArtsEdge site. It provides an art gallery and links and
other resources to other art sites. Each
lesson plan is complete with procedures, visual aids, a list of materials, grading
rubrics, and all of the integrated standards.
There is a ton of information on this site!! I even bookmarked this
site.
Arts Integration on the Web
As I was searching the internet for resources, I found many, many places that claimed to have arts integrated ideas and lesson plans. However, these sites all fell short with not much of anything good on them. I did, although, find a few helpful sites for us.
The J. Paul Getty Museum: The Getty Museum has a section on their website where you can browse or search for lesson plans. I was able to search by grade level range and subject. Many of the lesson plans I looked at had some great ideas and would only have to be tweaked just a little to fit within the guidelines of true arts integration. I even saw many elementary level lesson plans that had good ideas which I could modify for my middle school students.
Denver Art Museum Creativity Resource for Teachers: This website produced by the Denver Art Museum is fabulous. There is an abundance of arts integrated lesson plans available to search through. The lesson plans I viewed were already arts integrated, as they were teaching both content areas. I found many great ideas on this site that I could easily incorporate into my units. Like the Getty Museum page, you are able to search by specific criteria such as grade level and content area.
The J. Paul Getty Museum: The Getty Museum has a section on their website where you can browse or search for lesson plans. I was able to search by grade level range and subject. Many of the lesson plans I looked at had some great ideas and would only have to be tweaked just a little to fit within the guidelines of true arts integration. I even saw many elementary level lesson plans that had good ideas which I could modify for my middle school students.
Denver Art Museum Creativity Resource for Teachers: This website produced by the Denver Art Museum is fabulous. There is an abundance of arts integrated lesson plans available to search through. The lesson plans I viewed were already arts integrated, as they were teaching both content areas. I found many great ideas on this site that I could easily incorporate into my units. Like the Getty Museum page, you are able to search by specific criteria such as grade level and content area.
Kaaveh Akbari -- ELA
http://prezi.com/ygohioa6onlj/arts-integration/
This first link is an example of arts integration in an AP US History class. The creator did a neat job of presenting her ideas with the use of Prezi. She explained what arts integration is,and then she included ideas for projects. For example, she has her students produce a radio or TV commercial as well as designing a Time magazine cover for a specific era.
http://www.pinterest.com/search/pins/?q=arts%20integrated%20classroom
For the above link, a suggestion that I have for everyone is just doing a search on Pinterest on arts integrated classrooms. You can easily get lost for hours just going through the different ideas posted on the site. From searching Pinterest, I found a book that I want to get my hands on -- "Living History in the Classroom: Integrative Arts Activities for Making Social Studies Meaningful."
http://www.edutopia.org/stw-arts-integration-resources-lesson-plans?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=post&utm_campaign=STW-arts-integration
For this last link, this is a nice resource that you could point someone to if they are interested in arts integrated teaching, and you don't necessarily have the time to fill them in. This is something that hopefully we all could pitch in to create ourselves for CCSD. It's a site that explains arts integration, has sample lesson plans, and even has links to other resources (such as the Kennedy Center and AIS).
I do have to say that while searching the net for "arts integration" in education, I was frustrated to find a lot of things incorrectly labeled as "arts integration" when it truly should have been "arts enhacement." I'm glad that we've learned the difference between the two as I felt a sense of internal snootiness to read or view a link about "arts integration" only to recognize it was truly "arts enhancement." Because of this, I won't look like an amateur around those that are truly familiar with arts integration.
This first link is an example of arts integration in an AP US History class. The creator did a neat job of presenting her ideas with the use of Prezi. She explained what arts integration is,and then she included ideas for projects. For example, she has her students produce a radio or TV commercial as well as designing a Time magazine cover for a specific era.
http://www.pinterest.com/search/pins/?q=arts%20integrated%20classroom
For the above link, a suggestion that I have for everyone is just doing a search on Pinterest on arts integrated classrooms. You can easily get lost for hours just going through the different ideas posted on the site. From searching Pinterest, I found a book that I want to get my hands on -- "Living History in the Classroom: Integrative Arts Activities for Making Social Studies Meaningful."
http://www.edutopia.org/stw-arts-integration-resources-lesson-plans?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=post&utm_campaign=STW-arts-integration
For this last link, this is a nice resource that you could point someone to if they are interested in arts integrated teaching, and you don't necessarily have the time to fill them in. This is something that hopefully we all could pitch in to create ourselves for CCSD. It's a site that explains arts integration, has sample lesson plans, and even has links to other resources (such as the Kennedy Center and AIS).
I do have to say that while searching the net for "arts integration" in education, I was frustrated to find a lot of things incorrectly labeled as "arts integration" when it truly should have been "arts enhacement." I'm glad that we've learned the difference between the two as I felt a sense of internal snootiness to read or view a link about "arts integration" only to recognize it was truly "arts enhancement." Because of this, I won't look like an amateur around those that are truly familiar with arts integration.
Website, Website, Video
The first website I found was apparently a popular one. I looked at the lesson plans that were on Education Closet. There are many different types of lessons that cover reading, writing, math, music, visual arts, movement, and even bullying. I was amazed at the amount of lessons and how it was actual integration and not just enhancements.
The second place I went to look was Pinterest. Once you go to Pinterest you can search for arts integration or arts education; up pops a plethora of different ideas, lessons, and videos. You can take a quick peek at just a search for Arts Integration by clicking here. I was amazed at what I could find by using Pinterest. Since it is not an actual arts integration website there are a few pins that would be classified as arts enhancement, but as participants of this grant I feel we could weed those out.
There are many videos on YouTube, but one of the people that sticks out the most in my mind are videos by Mary Palmer. If you watch the video below you can see why I like her videos.
You can check more of her videos by going to her YouTube Channel. They are all geared towards elementary school, sorry secondary teachers. She also has a website where she has information about herself, information about her program Through the Arts,
The Teaching Channel
I spent my hour on the teaching channel website. I looked at some incredible lessons that teachers had prepared and modeled. I was very impressed with an arts integrated ela and music lesson. It was located at www.teachingchannel.org/videos/teaching-ela-with-music. The teacher was doing a lesson on black history month with composer Duke Ellington. In the lesson, students discovered similes in the book and had to write their own similes. Students then incorporated their own similes into song. I also watched the lesson about teaching symmetry with dance - www.teachingchannel.org/videos/teaching - symmetry-with-dance. There was another lesson I watched that showed how basic music fundamentals enhance student learning. I gained a few new insights into my teaching from this video. Teaching rhythms was simplified and it makes sense to switch that in my lessons. www.teachingchannel.org/videos/teaching-music-fundamentals-enhance-student-learning. The final lesson plan I watched was about a music teacher incorporating poetry into her music lesson. She had the students write a haiku and then put instruments with the haiku in appropriate places. www.teachingchannel.org/videos/teaching-3rd-grade-poetry-lesson.
All in all, I thought the lesson plans I viewed gave me some tips about how to teach my subject better and easier ways to incorporate ela and math.
All in all, I thought the lesson plans I viewed gave me some tips about how to teach my subject better and easier ways to incorporate ela and math.
The Links of Interest!
There is so much useful, and probably more useless, information on the internet, the task of limiting interesting links to just a few and sorting out the bad is daunting. I want to share a few things with a reminder that my mind makes bizarre connections frequently.
THE STORY OF MOVIES
http://www.storyofmovies.org/common/11041/educationalStandards.cfm?clientID=11041
Although I am primarily an Art Educator, I have a long standing passion for film. I took enough film history and production classes in college to qualify for a minor in it. In my 3rd year of teaching high school, and casual conversations with my art students about film history, I was shocked at how little they knew and became determined to teach some sort of Film History class. When I would ask, yearly, the administration looked at me as if I had asked to fly the moon. They told me it didn't exist.
I finally had a film buff administrator who thought it was a decent idea. The hard task of refining the curriculum fell upon me. After I had already taught the class a couple of years, I stumbled upon this website. While mainly geared towards middle school and a limited curriculum, it did help me in justifying what I was already doing and helped me with ideas to improve. The main page has this inspiring video that explains what the site is about;
http://www.storyofmovies.org/common/11041/som.cfm?clientID=11041
How can this help teachers who do not teach Film Studies? A few important points about integrating the art of film into any classroom:
1. Watch the full movie. Some administrators have been conditioned to have their head explode when they find a teacher doing this. Mostly it is justified (teachers having a free day showing films that have little to do with the curriculum) . But, as the filmmakers and teachers who developed this program discovered, students can only achieve full understanding if they watch the entire film. For many years, film was considered simple entertainment with little educational value. However, students now live in a visual age and are more likely to receive information via a video on the internet than reading (you can argue if this is a positive or negative development in humanity all you want, but it is a fact of contemporary society). Students must be taught how to "read" a film; why did the director choose that shot? Why is there an edit here? Students should also come to appreciate the history of film and the stories that are a direct reflection of the time they were made. If legitimately integrated into the content of the class, film becomes a powerful tool.
2. It's about the film, not the book. This might confuse or upset some English teachers, but if you are only using a film adapted from a book to supplement the book (for instance, students read "To Kill A Mockingbird" then watch the movie "To Kill A Mockingbird"), it is pointless and removes any value in actually watching the film. Rather than experiencing the film with the filmmakers' artistic intent, the overall approach to the film for the student becomes "what did they get wrong." A more integrated example would be to have students read a science fiction story then watch "The Day the Earth Stood Still" and discuss how each artist approached the overall genre of science fiction.
IMAGINEERING
http://www.imagineeringdisney.com/forums/
People who know me would not be surprised about this. Imagineering is a term coined by Walt Disney to explain the artists and engineers who help design and build Disney park attractions. This was a crazy Arts Integration experiment in the 1950's that could have taken down an entire film studio. Walt Disney managed to encourage artists, architects and engineers to work together (instead of arguing), understand each other and each others' strengths, and create a new form of entertainment.
I have had my art students in the past do a project where they must work together to design an attraction. Using Imagineering resources, I help students understand that the rides designed by engineers are not just roller coasters; these rides immerse people in a complete environment (from the architecture to the plants) to tell a STORY. Even if it is not obvious to the person riding it, every Disney ride begins with a written story, then designs, then the engineering (science) of building it.
While I cover the first and second aspects of this project, I have not been able to integrate the final science aspect of the project.
Hopefully I will find a willing science teacher one day.
THE STORY OF MOVIES
http://www.storyofmovies.org/common/11041/educationalStandards.cfm?clientID=11041
Although I am primarily an Art Educator, I have a long standing passion for film. I took enough film history and production classes in college to qualify for a minor in it. In my 3rd year of teaching high school, and casual conversations with my art students about film history, I was shocked at how little they knew and became determined to teach some sort of Film History class. When I would ask, yearly, the administration looked at me as if I had asked to fly the moon. They told me it didn't exist.
I finally had a film buff administrator who thought it was a decent idea. The hard task of refining the curriculum fell upon me. After I had already taught the class a couple of years, I stumbled upon this website. While mainly geared towards middle school and a limited curriculum, it did help me in justifying what I was already doing and helped me with ideas to improve. The main page has this inspiring video that explains what the site is about;
http://www.storyofmovies.org/common/11041/som.cfm?clientID=11041
How can this help teachers who do not teach Film Studies? A few important points about integrating the art of film into any classroom:
1. Watch the full movie. Some administrators have been conditioned to have their head explode when they find a teacher doing this. Mostly it is justified (teachers having a free day showing films that have little to do with the curriculum) . But, as the filmmakers and teachers who developed this program discovered, students can only achieve full understanding if they watch the entire film. For many years, film was considered simple entertainment with little educational value. However, students now live in a visual age and are more likely to receive information via a video on the internet than reading (you can argue if this is a positive or negative development in humanity all you want, but it is a fact of contemporary society). Students must be taught how to "read" a film; why did the director choose that shot? Why is there an edit here? Students should also come to appreciate the history of film and the stories that are a direct reflection of the time they were made. If legitimately integrated into the content of the class, film becomes a powerful tool.
2. It's about the film, not the book. This might confuse or upset some English teachers, but if you are only using a film adapted from a book to supplement the book (for instance, students read "To Kill A Mockingbird" then watch the movie "To Kill A Mockingbird"), it is pointless and removes any value in actually watching the film. Rather than experiencing the film with the filmmakers' artistic intent, the overall approach to the film for the student becomes "what did they get wrong." A more integrated example would be to have students read a science fiction story then watch "The Day the Earth Stood Still" and discuss how each artist approached the overall genre of science fiction.
IMAGINEERING
http://www.imagineeringdisney.com/forums/
People who know me would not be surprised about this. Imagineering is a term coined by Walt Disney to explain the artists and engineers who help design and build Disney park attractions. This was a crazy Arts Integration experiment in the 1950's that could have taken down an entire film studio. Walt Disney managed to encourage artists, architects and engineers to work together (instead of arguing), understand each other and each others' strengths, and create a new form of entertainment.
While I cover the first and second aspects of this project, I have not been able to integrate the final science aspect of the project.
Hopefully I will find a willing science teacher one day.
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