Reflection #15

This class truly has been a great experience especially to get me more comfortable with integrating arts into the classroom. I know that from this class I will take so much away with me, and really apply it to my own classroom. We have learned so many different integration skills that will help me in my future classroom so that way I can integrate the arts with many different lessons and subjects that I teach. Another thing that we have learned is many of the principles and elements of visual arts, theatre, music, and dance. It is very important that I continue to look back on these important things that we learned so I can continue to use these forms of art in my classroom.
Like I have said in many of my previous blogs before this class I never was comfortable with art, drama, or music and then to be able to integrate that into my classroom there was no way! I am truly thankful for this class and everything we have learned. I never realized how many benefits integrating the arts into a classroom can have on the students, but now that I know I will do my hardest to integrate the arts as much as I can in multiple forms so the children can try new things. Also, I am thankful for being introduced to so many ways to integrate the arts that way I can now feel more comfortable with it, and actually apply it to my own classroom. I know that the information we learned in this classroom will not be forgotten and that it will be applied in my future classroom. I believe that it is so important that children have the chance to take place in art, drama, music, and dance and when it is applied learning it will help them so much in their comprehension and remembering skills. I cannot wait to apply what we have learned and integrate it into my classroom. I know the outcomes will be great!

Reflection #14

This semester in arts I have truly learned so much. Through my classes before this class I had always just heard teachers say that there was no time really to integrate the arts into a classroom. I am glad through this class that I have learned ways to be able to integrate arts into my classroom with different subjects and lessons. I think that is the main thing that I am so excited about learning. I am so thrilled that there are ways to integrate arts into my classroom to enhance the learning of my students. Through reading the text book, attending class weekly, and even trying techniques in field I have learned that integrating arts into lesson plans really does help the comprehension of the children. I never got to experience a lot with art growing up in elementary school, and I am not going to lie when I say that arts have always kind of scared me. I can honestly say that before this class and learning ways to integrate different art forms into the classroom I probably never would have done it in my classroom. We have learned so many fun, easy ways in this class to make art forms available to our future students. I know that from seeing and applying these techniques that I will definitely integrate arts into my classroom as much as possible. When I first started this class I had no idea how important art was to integrate into the classroom. I had no idea that it could have lasting affects on the students. I wish that in elementary school I could have had the chance to experience more art integration. This class truly has made me be more comfortable with all the arts forms including visual arts, drama, music, and dance. Before this class I would have not had any clue on how to integrate arts into my classroom, and I probably would have been like a lot of teachers out there now days that say there is no time. I truly have learned that there is time, and there is a way to integrate art, dance, drama, and music into lesson plans that may or may not have anything to do with art. Art integration is so important, and I know that as a future teacher I WILL Integrate it as much as I possibly can into my classroom.

Reflection #13

WHAT?: This week was our last two days in field. I cannot believe it is already over. I was really sad about leaving the classroom. Since my partner and I taught last week this week we just mainly observed and helped our cooperating teacher where she asked us to. We did not see hardly any art integrated into the classroom at all this week.

SO WHAT?: I feel like it is so important to integrate the arts into the classroom any chance we get. I feel like this classroom did not get tons of art integration; however, when we taught last week we did 3 art integrated lessons which the children loved and had so much fun with. It was so awesome to see the children's creativity. The only thing we saw this week was when the children were learning math they were drawing pictures to help them solve the problems. It was really neat to see the children all use different pictures in order to help them with them math problems. Children are so creative when it comes to art. It is their chance to open up and really let their personality shine through if they want to. It is so important for the children to be able to express their creativity with art once in awhile. This helps the children with their comprehension and learning levels.

NOW WHAT?: I know that from this experience and really seeing how much children enjoy and NEED art integration that I will integrate as much art into my classroom as possible. I think it is so important for the children to be able to express their personalities through their creativity. It was so neat to see the children's different artworks and to hear their stories behind why they did what they did. The same goes for their math lesson even. I thought it was so neat that they could draw pictures to help them represent the problems. I think for some of the children this really helped the math unit CLICK for them, and that was so awesome to observe. I think that some children need this kind of representation. I have learned so much throughout this field experience, and one main important thing is that art really is so important to integrate in the classroom. It is very important that children get the exposure to these types of lessons and activities. I believe that it really does help out their learning skills, and I know that as a teacher I will integrate art into my classroom as much as possible.

Reflection #12

WHAT?: This week my field partner and I taught our lessons. We did three lessons that were arts integrated. Two of them were visual arts and the other one was theatre. They worked really well other then classroom management is a lot harder to maintain when the children are doing arts integrated lessons. We taught the children about Greek mythology, art, and architecture. The first art integrated lesson we did was the children acted out a myth with their own interpretation in a group. The two visual arts was drawing their own modern architecture building and labeling it with the proper parts we taught them, and then the last one was the children made their own Greek influenced story telling vases.

SO WHAT?: My partner and I wanted to use as much art integrated lessons as we could because when we were first observing we did not feel that the children got to use a lot of arts in their classroom. We wanted to make sure that we switched things up for the children in the classroom and gave them a taste of using arts with their lessons. You could tell the children really just loved the art projects! We were so glad that they were a hit. I think that adding arts into the lesson plans really helped the children's comprehension because the next day we would ask them about the day before and they would remember so much about what we learned all because of the arts projects. I think that the children enjoyed the visual arts lessons more than the theatre just because they were a little shy getting up in front of the classroom to act, but once they got going the students did great. The students really enjoyed watching the other groups act out as well! It was a great activity especially to help the children's comprehension skills on the myths.

NOW WHAT?: Using arts integrated lesson plans in field really helped me learn what I need to do in my own classroom. I think that art lessons really needed to be planned out or else they can get out of hand really easy. I learned that using arts integrated lessons in my classroom you really need to make sure you have good classroom management during the lesson because if not the children will get off task and start talking a lot, which leads to the art projects not getting completed. I was really impressed with how the children acted out the myths, some groups were better than others, but overall the myths were acted out really great. I think that the children really enjoyed this activity, and it helped them to remember the myths a lot more than just reading them. I know that this is something I want to use in my classroom because it really does help the students. Actually using arts integrated lessons really helps you see how important they are to use in the classroom, and I know I will use them a lot more than I ever would have without this class!

Reflection #11

WHAT?: This week in class we were able to help out in the classroom a lot more last week, but we still haven't taught our own personal lesson plans yet. We will do that next week. We created two lesson plans with 3 art integrated activities, so next week I will blog more about that and how they went. This week we still did not see tons of art integration in the classroom. I wish we could see more, but the students did go attend a music class right after lunch. They do this throughout the week where after lunch they will go to a speciality class. Some days (not sure which days) they go to an actual art class to do some art projects. However, the teacher does not use tons of art integration in her class actually- that I have seen yet.

SO WHAT?: i believe that it is very important for the children to be able to attend classes like music and art. However, I do believe that these should be integrated into the class as much as possible. I do not believe that the only time the children should be able to participate in this is outside of the class. I think something else the teacher needs to do is get the children up and moving more, because I feel that the whole time in class all they are doing is sitting. I don't think that this is good for children to do all day until lunch, so I believe that if arts was integrated throughout the day occasionally that it would help the children want to learn and listen more. I think that the children get tired and bored of sitting there all day so they start getting rowdy; however, she is a very good teacher. I just think the children should have more arts integrated whenever possible, especially after learning how important it is in class.

NOW WHAT?: I still think as a teacher I am going to integrate the arts/music/drama as much as I can in the classroom. I think it really helps boost the children's motivation level. This would in turn help them want to learn and do better in class. In our lesson plans we made sure we did some fun, but yet educational activities for the children so they got to experience different ways of learning. We are doing a lesson where the children will create a poster for a Greek God, the children will act out a myth to their interpretation of it, and then they will do a visual arts lesson creating a Greek influenced vase. I am so excited for the children to be able to do these activities. I think they will really enjoy them while still learning a lot about Greece. Next week we will let you know how these lesson plans went, and if there is anything we should change about our lesson plans! I am just so excited for the children to be able to experience something new, and I am also excited to put what I have learned so far in class to use! I want to see if my interpretation of things actually works in a classroom!

Reflection #10

WHAT?: This week in field my partner and I just got to observe and help the children when needed. Our teacher wanted us to get a feel for her classroom and the children before we really started to do too much! It has been a really fun experience so far. We have been going in the mornings this week and so to be honest the teacher really has not done much that has been art integrated. The one thing that was art integrated was for guided reading and for the children's assignment they were to draw a comic strip of pictures of events that were happening in their reading book.

SO WHAT?: I thought that this was a very clever assignment, and that it would help the children express their visualizations on paper. It is very important that while the children are reading that they are having a movie playing through their head as well. This will help them see what everything in the book looks like not just in words. I think that the classroom really does need to have more art integration from what I have seen so far. However, I have just been in the morning so maybe during the afternoon she uses art a little bit more- which we are hoping. Another thing she does is with math the teacher is teaching fractions so she has the children draw out their math problems to help them better understand- I really enjoy this! It is one thing that I think really benefits the students.

NOW WHAT?: Based upon the first week so far it has been a great learning experience. In my classroom I know that I would like to integrate the arts more, especially because lately we have learned how much it benefits the children. I think that it is so important that the children get an opportunity to have art in their classroom, because it helps them learn so much more. I am hoping that in this classroom I will see more art integration, but if not I know that as a teacher I will be sure to integrate art more. I think that the children will enjoy it so much! There has been a couple of art integrated things, but in our lesson plans I know that we are going to try and use art as much as we possibly can for this class so that way they get the opportunity!

Reflection #9

What?: During this experience I feel that I was learning the entire time. I didn't realize how tough it can be to create lyrics. However, I was very proud of myself when I did create my own! During the presentation my group learned that we really need to realize how many words we put into a sentence because smashing too many in can be really hard for everyone to learn. I was glad that we could just choose one lyric to teach because teaching all four of them would have been really tough.

SO WHAT?: I think that as a teacher it is very important for me to always remember that lyrics cannot have way too many words scrunched in them. I think that was my biggest problem. Also, I was kind of nervous to get in front of the class and sing, but it was really easy to do it once we got going. I need to remember that if I act nervous to sing that my class will not feel very comfortable singing either. I need to make it a fun environment so that way students in my classroom can have many opportunities to experience music. I think that music can really help children learn and comprehend lessons so much more, because it can fun and memorable.

NOW WHAT?: In my classroom I know that it is very important to integrate music, because I know that the songs I learned really did help my emphasis on the subjects that they were teaching. I know that if I give my class the opportunity to experience music that they will have fun with it, just like we did in class. I need to make sure I practice music so that way I do feel more comfortable integrating it into my classroom. I think that if we, as teachers, switch up our classrooms and teach lessons in these new ways we are obtaining we are going to make our students have a GREAT learning experience. I know that after class on Thursday I was wishing that as a student in elementary school I wish that I would have gotten more opportunities to experience music in my classrooms. If I would have gotten more chances maybe I would be more comfortable with it today. I don't want my students to feel this way. I want to make sure they learn new things, especially music, because I feel like that is one area that if people are not comfortable with they will just not do it. I want to feel comfortable with it so I can integrate music into my classroom!

Reflection #8

WHAT?: Music is when you get to sing, make beats, and rhythms. It is the sounds produced by singers or musical instruments. I believe that integrating music in the classroom is very important because I think that it is something very fun and enjoyable for the students in the classroom. In the text book it says that integrating music is very correlated with academic performance and character traits. It boosts character traits which results in higher test scores. I know that all of us, as teachers, are interested in having our students excel academically especially with test scores.

SO WHAT?: I believe that as a teacher we should make learning as enjoyable as possible for our students. If we make it fun for them they will be willing to learn. I think that integrating music with lessons in the classroom it will help the children comprehend and keep the information longer. Children are able to remember things better if they are able to correlate it with something fun and enjoyable to them. I want to make my classroom enjoyable and fun for my students to help them excel academically.

NOW WHAT?: I think that is is very important as a future teacher to always be looking for new, creative ideas to use in the classroom. There are many, many ideas out there in the world on how to use music in the classroom. In class last week we learned many fun ideas to help the children learn more. I also believe that if I am going to teach and integrate music in my classroom I need to be very familiar with music myself. I need to be able to have many ideas to use for my students that way I am not always using the same things because the students will get bored of that. I am so excited to learn a lot of ideas on how to integrate music into my classroom not only to make my classroom fun, but to help my students excel academically.

Reflection #7

WHAT?: This week was so fun to see every one's different ideas for the dance presentation. I think it was so neat to see how we could incorporate dance into so many different subjects and lesson plans. I never really thought that dance could be used for all subjects and today I learned so many great ways on how to integrate it into my classroom. I think that dance is so important for the students to participate in especially if you are using it to reinforce a lesson, because I believe that what the students learn in the dance will stick so much better in their mind. Having something fun or memorable to reinforce learning helps so much to remember it!

SO WHAT?: I think that in class today we learned so many great and different ideas from each group. There are so many lesson ideas that you could twist and turn and make them work perfectly for you and your classroom. Without these ideas from the other students I would have no idea on a variety of dance ideas. I know that I will take many ideas, subjects, lesson plans, and dance moves from the presentations we seen in class today. I cannot wait to use them in my classroom even in field especially cause the video we watched today explained how many good things come from integrating the arts/dance into the classrooms. I think even, as the teacher, it is important for you to dance with your students that way they feel more comfortable to start dancing with the whole class. There are some things on the lessons from today that I am sure, as teachers, we will have to adjust to make it work just right for our own class but overall the ideas were wonderful and very helpful.

NOW WHAT?: From everything we learned today I plan on using dance so much more, because I actually feel more comfortable with the ideas and different dance moves we learned today. I feel that without doing these presentations in class that we all would not be near as comfortable with dance as we are after we have seen the whole class present their different ideas. I think in order to integrate dance into my classroom with multiple subjects I would have to experiment different dance ideas and lessons to see what worked and what doesn't work. I think that it would take a lot of trial and error; however, I believe that dance would be a major hit with the classroom because the kids would think it was so much fun just like the class did today! There are so many ways to use dance in the classroom it would just take some research to see where, as a teacher, you think it would work best. I know now that I am going to start integrating dance a lot more into my lesson plans. It makes learning so much more fun and comprehendable. I plan on teaching my future class many things with dance now because I seen so many different areas where you could apply it to!

Reflection #6

WHAT?: I am going to be honest I never thought about how and why to integrate dance into my classroom until this week. I guess I just did not realize how important it really was, and how much fun it could be for the students. They get to learn/experience lessons/books in a whole different dimension when they are danced out. At the dance workshop I attented we learned many differen lessons based upon different subjects that we were able to dance out. Each lesson followed core standards of different grades. I was so surprised about how much information I was able to retain by dancing it out to rememeber rather than reading it out of a book. I believe that dancing in the classroom to teach different things is SO important. Although, dancing is very fun for the children I think that, as the teacher, we need to be very clear on what we are expecting out of the children, because if not with all the students running around the room things can get out of control very fast! We just need to be aware of what/how we want things to happen and what objective we want the children to get out of the activity.

SO WHAT?: I think that before this week I would have no idea on how to incorporate dance along with a book or lesson. Now I have so many great ideas on how and what to do with the presentation in class. Like I said above though, as a group, we need to make sure we are clear on what we expect out of the audience. It is very important that the children are getting something out of the dancing, and not that they are just dancing. I mean the dancing part is very important, but if we are teaching an objective we need to make sure that the children are really pulling the objective out of the dance and understanding it enough to retain the information being taught.

NOW WHAT?: I think that in order to be able to integrate dance into my classroom I really need to have a lot of ideas under my belt, just in case one idea doesn't worked as well as I had planned it to. However, as a teacher I think it is so imporant to incorporate this into my classroom. I think that learning the ideas and completing the activities we did in class I learned so much on how to integrate dance into all kinds of subjects and lessons. I never, ever thought it was possible to incorporate dance with say a science lesson. Then when we actually did an example of this at the workshop I was so surprised on how much information I retained and remembered. This is very helpful for children, and so important for them to learn in multiple ways. Not the same boring book every single time! However, the book is necessary sometimes!

Reflection # 5

WHAT?: I really enjoyed this section of the book! I loved learning all the different ideas of process drama and how to integrate them into my classroom. I think that it is one thing to get ideas of activities but to get ideas of how to actually use them in my classroom is such a GREAT thing! Also, the group presentations we had there were so many different ideas shown and presented. I loved how they were all different, and so we got so many ideas from each of the presentations. Not only ideas that would work for the books the groups presented, but ideas that could work with multiple books!

SO WHAT?: I did have some favorite activites. I like the ones that involve the whole classroom for example: the activites where you divide the whole class into groups. I think that as a class this would be fun for everyone to be participating, not just a few students. Also, I really enjoy decision alley. I think that it can be a real eye opener for the children, because a lot of them do not understand the situation until they are actually in it themselves. I also really enjoyed the tableu/frozen picture that Ashley in our group did. This was a great way to see what the children are actually getting from the text as you read. They are able to make the picture that THEY would see as a group from a section of the text. I also really like Mantle of Expertise, because I think you can tell how everyone is feeling individually about the part of expertise you assign them to.

NOW WHAT?: I think that drama can be used in many ways. I think that it can be used, like we did in class, with a storybook or it can be used as brain boosters/energizers for the classroom, etc. I think that it is very important, as a teacher, to be very prepared in how you are going to use the activities the lessons you are teaching, because where the students will be participating and moving around, it could get out of hand really fast. I think it is very important to integrate drama in the classroom, because not only is it fun, but it also is something different for the students. It teaches them new ways to understand and interpret the text. Drama is something that they will not be doing everyday. It is important to shake up our classrooms, but to be very prepared in doing so.

Reflection #4

WHAT?: This week was a huge eye opener for me in class. When I first seen that this week's lesson was going to be on drama I just couldn't picture how to integrate drama into the classroom with all different subjects. I think that drama is so fun to incorporate in the classroom, because it keeps the children involved, and it is VERY fun! I had a blast in class learning all the new activites in class, and I loved the presentation that we did with the book at the end. It kept me so involved while you were reading the storybook to us.

SO WHAT?: This week in class we learned so many fun, drama activities. I am excited to present to the classroom our book and our drama tools. I think that when we do these activities it helps learn so many new ideas on how to integrate drama into the classroom with all subjects and standards. I think one of my favorite ideas was the way we presented the story book to the classroom. I loved how we used a simple storybook to accomplish different subjects and standards while doing fun activities with it. While reading through the 21 process drama tools there were many activities that I really liked, one of my favorites was the "thought-tracking" idea. I think that this drama activity would be so interesting to do in class!

NOW WHAT?: I didn't really realize that there were so many ways and ideas to integrate drama in the classroom, like I said up above. I think it is so important to incorporate drama in the classroom because for one I think it keeps the children more involved with all the activities. When you do these fun activites the students have a chance to be apart of the lesson. I think that doing activities like the examples are ways that the children will remember what they are learning in all subjects better.

I think by integrating drama with all subjects it keeps the children staying creative because they have to put themselves into the lesson. Also, when you are doing an activity with a teaching lesson the children really have to keep paying attention in order to complete the activity or role that they are suppose to. Also, using drama in the classroom really shakes things up with the students. It gives them something to do rather then sit there and be lectured the whole time, which is fun for us teachers as well!

Reflection #3

WHAT?: This week in class we learned about the principles of art. I think that each every principle is so important, and then when they are all used together it provides so much unity in an artwork. I think it is very important to know the difference between each principle and be able to identify them in artwork. When you know how to indentify each principle then it is very easy to add it in to your own artwork. Also, this week we had each group present their illustrators. I loved these presentations, and I loved being able to reinact thier artwork! It was really fun! I believe that it is so important to show young children illustrators because not only are they learning background of the illustrator/book, but they are also getting ideas on how to create their artwork. By seeing multiple ideas of artwork the children can use these, in their own creative way, to complete their artwork.

SO WHAT?: For me as a teacher it is so important that I have multiple ideas for artwork. For my class it would not be fun if I was doing the same art project EVERYDAY! By learning more and researching illustrators it gives me many ideas on how to integrate art into my classroom, because many of these artworks could be used for more than just art in the classroom. Just even in the hour we had to listen to the presentations and reinact their artwork I learned sooo much and so many different ideas to use. I know that as a teacher it is very important for me to research illustrators all the time, use some of their art ideas, and integrate them in my classroom.

NOW WHAT?: Art I feel in slowly being weeded out of classrooms. Like I said in my previous blogs I really do not remember doing much artwork in any of my classrooms, except for holiday decorations. I just think it is so important, for me as a teacher, to keep MANY ideas in my classroom on how to integrate art into my classroom. Not only is it fun, but it helps the children to stay creative. Also, it will help them feel more comfortable with art so when they get into high school or college, and they have to take an art class they are not NERVOUS like I was! I think when I am a teacher if I use art in my classroom it is going to keep my classroom a lot more fun and interesting, not only for me but for my students!

Reflection #2

WHAT: I really enjoyed the activity that we did in class this week. I thought it was a great way to teach children the elements and principles of visual arts. I think that this would be a great activity to do in my classroom because not only are the children doing hands on activities with the art but they are also learning the definitions about them. I think the text had some great things to learn about visual art. My favorite things were how it explained what visual art did for the children emotionally and for their self-esteem.

SO WHAT: Every week I learn more and more how important for me, as a teacher, it is to integrate art into the classroom. I have read so many positive outcomes that visual arts can have on children in the text. I think that this class is so important for me because now hopefully, I can feel comfortable enough to have a lot of art projects/lessons in my classroom. Because I know before I did not feel comfortable doing art at all. Thinking back to my school years I wish that we would have been offered more visual arts, especially reading all the positive outcomes that it doesn have for children. I think that visual arts lets children show their creative side, which is extremely important!

NOW WHAT: I think that by completing and passing this course I will feel so much more comfortable and more prepared to have visual arts in my classroom. I guess even before even just these two weeks of class I never realized how important integrating arts into my classroom really would be. The text offers so many ideas on how to promote and integrate visual arts, as a teacher, some of these ideas will be very helpful for me to use in my lesson plans. I think as a teacher it is very important to realize that arts can be used for more subjects then just strictly art projects. It can be integrated into every subject in the classrom, and I will definitely have to keep that in mind when I am lesson planning in the future!

Reflection #1

WHAT?: Growing up I never really enjoyed art like: drawing, painting, etc. I never really had that artistic ability. I have had a lot more experience with dance and that type of art. I remember some times in elementary school where we would do little art projects here and there, mainly for holidays. Other then that I do not really remember any other art offered in school. I learned reading through the first 3 chapters in the book that it is really important to integrate art in my classroom. I had no idea that art could really have an effect on every single subject in school. Also, I never knew that it could effect a child's self-esteem. I know that as an elementary school teacher I am going to integrate creative arts as much as I can in my classroom. I think it is important to even integrate art in with your other subjects like math, science, English, etc.

SO WHAT?: Growing up as a little girl I loved dancing and music. I think that had the biggest impact on my life. I took dancing ever since I was 4 years old. I always walked around the house dancing, tumbling, singing, etc. My dad still today always talks about me being like that when I was little girl. I remember two of my teachers from elementary school the best. It was my third and fifth grade teacher. I think the reason that I remember them the most is because they always had a fun way of teaching every subject to us. They always came into the classroom happy and ready to teach, but they knew when they needed to be serious. The teachers that I did not care for as much I think were just the ones that made me feel like they HAD to be there to teach me, not like they wanted to. Another thing, is they were never really willing to have fun. When I become a teacher I think my main goal is to show my students that I want to be there to teach them, and that I am there because I WANT to help them not because I HAVE to be there. Also, after reading some of the research through the first couple of chapters in the book about integrating art in the classroom, I think it is very important that I always integrate art into my classroom. I think that this will have a huge impact on my students.

NOW WHAT?: In order to properly prepare me to be able to integrate art into my classroom I think that it is very important that I have a class like this one. Because right now without any background on creative arts I would not feel comfortable integrating arts into my classroom. I need to learn different projects about arts and especially on how to apply them to all the subjects in my classroom that way I can apply this when I become a teacher. Also, I am very excited for the education program in general because I think that I am going to learn so much valuable information about managing my classroom, lesson plans, types of children, etc that I will feel very prepared to have my own classroom! I am so excited!