3rd Grade Classroom Reflection
What form of arts integration or interdisciplinary learning units have you observed? In what ways were the visual forms investigated, learned, discussed, or produced in the classroom?
Art integration has taken place in many different forms in the classroom I am observing. The art integration that occurs most often is with reading and writing. Every Monday, the day I observe, one of the first things the class does in the morning is gather around on the carpet where the teacher reads a poem aloud. After the poem is read aloud to the students, they go back to their seats and draw a picture that they feel represents that poem. They can use markers, colored pencils, crayons etc. and are left with little guidelines. Another activity where art integration occurs is when students are asked to draw a visual aid detailed enough where a person who has not read the book they are representing, would know what happens in that part of the book just by the drawing. This allows students to critically think about what details in the book are most important to convey to the person observing their drawing, as well as help develop the details in their drawings.
Was there a Big Idea or theme used? If so describe. Were students working with narrative, observation, imagination, and / or visual thinking?
The big idea with these lessons is to have students recognize important parts in books or main ideas in poems, and convey those important details or main ideas in a visual way. Students were working with observation and visual thinking during these lessons. Students observed what was happening in the books or poems, then used visual thinking to determine what things looked like that were being described. Students were allowed to determine what they felt was important and what they wanted to draw in their pictures. Although they were prompted with the story, it was left up to each individual student to choose which part of the story they wanted to draw.
What suggestions would you have for integration and interdisciplinary learning for this unit or lesson you observed? Try to think how you could make learning more meaningful, connected, and deeper. Be specific.
One idea to make this lesson more integrated would be to have students write their own poem about the same topic as the poem read aloud but in a different style. For example, if fall was the main idea, you could integrate math by using multiplication to determine how many leaves are on a tree. Science could be integrated to this lesson by determining what happens to the weather when it becomes fall and why it gets colder during fall. There are many fall songs that can be introduced to the students to integrate music, and possibly even some math songs about leaves to even further integrate. To integrate social studies, you could discuss what people in other cultures wear during fall compared to what people here in America wear during fall. There are several ways you could take the simple reading of a poem with a specific topic and integrate it into all areas of study to help children make more meaningful connections.
Art Classroom reflection
I observed a 3rd grade art lesson in October 2013. The content of the lesson was about abstract art. The lesson began by the
teacher reading aloud When Pigasso Met Mootise by: Nina Laden. As the teacher read aloud, he asked students to pay close attention to the artwork on each page because they would be making something inspired from that. After reading the book, the teacher explained how the artwork in the book was similar to the real artwork of Picasso and Matisse and that their artwork was abstract. Next, there was a mini history lesson taught to the students about each artist and how they became artists, along with pictures on a power point, which is similar to their regular classroom teachers teaching strategies. Students were then instructed to return to their seats and
begin making abstract trees from cut up construction paper on the front of their sketchbooks.
The art room was decorated with a few posters of famous artists and famous artworks. There was an individual desk for each student with a bucket in the center of each table with a few markers, scissors, pencils, and glue.
Compared to a regular 3rd grade classroom, the art room was much louder. While working on their abstract trees, students seemed to engage in much more conversation with one another than in the normal classroom, causing it to be very loud. Some students finished their trees within a few minutes of returning to their seats, leading to some behavioral issues because they were not engaged in a specific activity and were “bored,” which is typically not an issue in their normal classroom because their teacher keeps them busy with several tasks. I believe that if the overall lesson at the beginning would have been shorter, allowed more student engagement and interaction, or had a more complex art project, there wouldn’t have behavior management issues and students could have possibly gained more from this art classroom experience.
What form of arts integration or interdisciplinary learning units have you observed? In what ways were the visual forms investigated, learned, discussed, or produced in the classroom?
Art integration has taken place in many different forms in the classroom I am observing. The art integration that occurs most often is with reading and writing. Every Monday, the day I observe, one of the first things the class does in the morning is gather around on the carpet where the teacher reads a poem aloud. After the poem is read aloud to the students, they go back to their seats and draw a picture that they feel represents that poem. They can use markers, colored pencils, crayons etc. and are left with little guidelines. Another activity where art integration occurs is when students are asked to draw a visual aid detailed enough where a person who has not read the book they are representing, would know what happens in that part of the book just by the drawing. This allows students to critically think about what details in the book are most important to convey to the person observing their drawing, as well as help develop the details in their drawings.
Was there a Big Idea or theme used? If so describe. Were students working with narrative, observation, imagination, and / or visual thinking?
The big idea with these lessons is to have students recognize important parts in books or main ideas in poems, and convey those important details or main ideas in a visual way. Students were working with observation and visual thinking during these lessons. Students observed what was happening in the books or poems, then used visual thinking to determine what things looked like that were being described. Students were allowed to determine what they felt was important and what they wanted to draw in their pictures. Although they were prompted with the story, it was left up to each individual student to choose which part of the story they wanted to draw.
What suggestions would you have for integration and interdisciplinary learning for this unit or lesson you observed? Try to think how you could make learning more meaningful, connected, and deeper. Be specific.
One idea to make this lesson more integrated would be to have students write their own poem about the same topic as the poem read aloud but in a different style. For example, if fall was the main idea, you could integrate math by using multiplication to determine how many leaves are on a tree. Science could be integrated to this lesson by determining what happens to the weather when it becomes fall and why it gets colder during fall. There are many fall songs that can be introduced to the students to integrate music, and possibly even some math songs about leaves to even further integrate. To integrate social studies, you could discuss what people in other cultures wear during fall compared to what people here in America wear during fall. There are several ways you could take the simple reading of a poem with a specific topic and integrate it into all areas of study to help children make more meaningful connections.
Art Classroom reflection
I observed a 3rd grade art lesson in October 2013. The content of the lesson was about abstract art. The lesson began by the
teacher reading aloud When Pigasso Met Mootise by: Nina Laden. As the teacher read aloud, he asked students to pay close attention to the artwork on each page because they would be making something inspired from that. After reading the book, the teacher explained how the artwork in the book was similar to the real artwork of Picasso and Matisse and that their artwork was abstract. Next, there was a mini history lesson taught to the students about each artist and how they became artists, along with pictures on a power point, which is similar to their regular classroom teachers teaching strategies. Students were then instructed to return to their seats and
begin making abstract trees from cut up construction paper on the front of their sketchbooks.
The art room was decorated with a few posters of famous artists and famous artworks. There was an individual desk for each student with a bucket in the center of each table with a few markers, scissors, pencils, and glue.
Compared to a regular 3rd grade classroom, the art room was much louder. While working on their abstract trees, students seemed to engage in much more conversation with one another than in the normal classroom, causing it to be very loud. Some students finished their trees within a few minutes of returning to their seats, leading to some behavioral issues because they were not engaged in a specific activity and were “bored,” which is typically not an issue in their normal classroom because their teacher keeps them busy with several tasks. I believe that if the overall lesson at the beginning would have been shorter, allowed more student engagement and interaction, or had a more complex art project, there wouldn’t have behavior management issues and students could have possibly gained more from this art classroom experience.