Vincent Van Gogh

Vincent Van Gogh

Wednesday, September 23, 2015

Fourth Grade Integration of the Water Cycle

Fourth grade illustration of the water cycle.

This past week the fourth grade students were learning about the water cycle. The classroom teachers and I collaborated and this is what came out of our collaboration. Students illustrated and labeled the water cycle in a beautiful way!  
 Kindergarten, first and second grades finished painting their line owls. An emphasis was put on symmetry, line designs, bold color choices and learning to paint with watercolor. 

Kindergarten and first grades are learning about the changing season and practicing stamping leaves and painting in the lines!




Saturday, September 12, 2015

Arts Integration and Self Portraits

"How the Arts Unlock the Door to Learning"
Mariko Nobori


"Integrating the arts into the curricula helped students embrace their learning and retain their knowledge."

"Arts integration goes beyond including art projects in class; it is a teaching strategy that seamlessly merges arts standards with core curricula to build connections and provide engaging context."

"Arts integration uses teaching practices that have been shown in brain-based research to improve comprehension and long-term retention.  For example, when students create stories, pictures, or other nonverbal expressions of the content they are learning -- a process researchers call elaboration -- they are also helping to better embed the information."

"Beyond engagement and retention...numerous other benefits of arts integration: It encourages healthy risk taking, helps kids recognize new skills in themselves and others, provides a way to differentiate instruction, builds collaboration among both students and teachers, bridges differences, and draws in parents and the community.  Plus it's just plain fun."

"Creating a richer, more memorable learning experience through the arts...unleash not only a rising tide of academic achievement but they lay the foundation for what it means to be a truly creative community."

What I loved most about this article is that it states teachers do not need to be "artistic" to be able to use art integration, rather they just need to learn a few of the fundamentals.  I look forward to the rest of our integrated learning this school year!

In Honor of September 11th

 Students were working on collage so we made these flags over our collages to show our support of September 11th. Charlotte Potter took them around and gave them to the fire fighters, police, ambulance crew, FBI and state's attorney. It was a great way to pause and show our thankfulness to those who keep us safe!
 First grade patriotic owls