Reflection 7: Field Trip

The two field trip events I choose to do was going to the Woodbury Art museum and seeing the UVU production of "Much to do About Nothing". The first of which was very much interesting, but not something I would put much effort behind having a class going to. Yet, the second event was able to impress me, and definitely was something I would like students to view before trying to do a unit on Shakespeare. There were also some other field trip events that I considered doing with the students, that involved art, but weren't particularly centered on it. Thanksgiving point for example, which has a wide variety available to classes to who come and visit there. Just the fresh air and scenery would be nice for the kids to experience. They also have some wonderful productions there. For instance The Secret Garden (wasn't playing this fall) which would be great to first read the book with the kids and then see it actualized in both play and music.

Field trips truly are a great way for students to learn, and I wish there was more of a budget for them in school funding as I think its far more liberating as well as impactful to leave the classroom and be able to experience the world rather than just be told. Maybe some day I will be able to realize this in my own classroom, though it is doubtful. :)

Reflection 6: Field Experince

While I knew that I wanted to integrated Creative Arts in my lessons I didn't realize how easy it actually would be for me. It was actually one the most important things to me, to make sure that the kids were in some way using creative thinking while learning the subject matter at hand. Perhaps most importantly however was that I was able to notice how important it was for the students to have this aspect in instruction. In a couple of the lessons that Kristy and I did we first had to do direct instruction before the activities we had planned. The difference in interest between that and when there was no follow up was amazing. The students became actively involved in asking questions to make sure that they knew what was going on for the games that we had planned, and even students who were not normally involved were raising their hands with the rest of the class.

This just proved to me how important it is to include the creative arts in small ways throughout every single lesson planned. Human beings are innately curious, but something first has to spark that and creative arts is that something. Areas that don't seem to connect to this are the ones that are most important to do so with though... like math and science. Both involve creativity, but are often blocked to students who look at it as firm data that has no change. This is the exact opposite when you get to the most important areas of these fields. It's my goal in the future to do just this, and look forward to implementing creative arts in these areas as well. :)

Reflection 5: Bringing 2-D to life

Drawing and the visual arts in general have always been dear to me ever since I was in 2nd grade and our teacher would have a daily competition to find a way to change a squiggly line of some sort into a true picture. We would all work hard on our drawings for about ten minutes and then put them at the front of the classroom. From there we would all vote for our favorite drawings, slowly narrowing it down, and for the sake of fairness none of us would know who drew what picture. This was a favorite activity of mine since occasionally I would make it to the top and it gave me confidence to think that I was a good drawer even if I struggled with my other school work.

I can't say I am an excellent artist now unlike some of my friends, but I still enjoy taking a pencil to paper or a brush to a canvas and showing what only I can see. This is something that I think visual arts gives to almost everyone if they are willing to give it a try, and it is absolutely essential to make sure that its part of the classroom. Drawing seems to be the most basic of creative arts to me, as children start as soon as they have a crayon in their hand. Some how it is a way to connect thoughts in ones head, and represent something that words sometimes fail in.

Reflection 4: Finding the Rhythm of the Classroom

Music has always been something that I have loved and been interested in but never really been able to learn to my dismay. It has lead to me feeling as though I have very little music in my bones except for enjoying listening to it and occasionally making up my own songs when I am bored in the car. Yet, when we discussed music in class this last week I discovered that maybe it wouldn't be so hard to include music in the classroom even though I myself am not quite as musical. For instance the idea was presented that on someday's a teacher could just have students sing all that they wanted to say. This simply delighted me as its actually a game that I already play with my brother occasionally when we are bored in the car or at work. Additionally the musical practices that were presented weren't nearly as difficult as I would have originally thought.

I think in my own classroom I am going to try and find what will work best to incorporate music with what I am teaching, as it might be hard to just do straight lessons on music since I don't know as much about it. I do kinda want to try and learn how to read music so that I can teach it... maybe I could include that with math at the lower levels. Also I really like the idea of making new lyrics to old music, something I also sometimes do with my brother :) It definitely needs to be a familiar tune though because in class when we tried to do it I could not hold on to the tune for the life of me, and I think at least some of the students in my own classroom of the future which have the same issue. Either way I definitely want to continue thinking about how I can include music in the classroom :)

Reflection 3: Dancing to Learning

In all honestly I grew up not being the biggest dancer in the world, and I tend to stand to the side rather than get in the middle of a dance, but I really like the idea of using it in the classroom. Probably the main reason for this is because last year I went to a small lecture where a man taught a group of students that were interested in becoming elementary about dance in the classroom and how essential it was. It was really amazing because he applied it to math, something I had never ever thought of doing before. Additionally he noted that students learn best when they are moving, and that when you are learning about something exciting to you, you want to move around, but usually you are confined to a chair and a desk, and that this hinders learning more then helps it.

Because of this prior knowledge I was really excited to review what I had learned as well as a few more things. The brain dance in particular was really awesome as I hadn't seen it before. AdditionallyI hadn't really thought about connecting dance to anything other than math, so the Jewish dance was really awesome, connecting it to social studies made a lot of sense as well, and would relaly connect to the student like it wouldn't have before.

I definitely think that the more experience you have with dance the more you understand how important it is to learning, and an individuals general happiness and well-being. Sometimes particularly for me its easy to forget how important it is when its not your focus. So I think its really great that people with a focus in dance are continually trying to get teachers and students to have more of a focus in this area. I definitely want to try and using it in my own classroom in at least the subjects of social studies and math, I will need to think of a few more... maybe music integration for English? I am not sure yet, but will definitely keep thinking about it.

Reflection 2: Intergrating Drama in the classroom

Its really amazing to look at the importance of using drama in the classroom, and what is sad is how forgotten it can be when it comes to trying to get the 'best test scores'. I definitely am planning on integrating drama as much as possible in my classroom, before it had more to do with the fact that I already enjoy it quite a bit, but the difference for students is amazing, both in their problem solving ablities and in their basic ability to function. (This is refering to test scores as well as functioning later on in other classrooms.) I do think it might be a little bit tricky at first in the classroom considering that kids tend to get a little bit rambuncious and I still wouldn't know how to guide them to the best of my ability, but I think after a few bumps the classroom would get it and settle into a really great environment for learning and drama collaborating.

One of the things I want to do in my classroom is make sure that no lesson is without integration with another subject. To do this may be a little bit tricky especially considering math and science, which tend to be the most disliked subjects in our schools today. With subjects like social studies, english, and technology I can think of a dozens different ways to integrate drama, but I am hitting a bit of a blog with those two. I think that this may be the cause of so many students having a difficult time with these subjects when they really can be alot of fun. I am going to have to brain storm on some ideas, but so far its only the history part of those two subjects I can think of. Maybe it would be possible to intergrate a drama game of 'investigation' with science. Considering the two have alot of similarities its not too far fetched... And math we could do fraction games where students are what make up the fractions. Lol. I am really not sure, but over time I will come up with more ^.^

Reflection 1.5: Roleplaying in the classroom.

I have always had a love of role playing and drama since I was a little kid, so I was really excited when I heard that we were going to be learning how to impliment it into the classroom. It not only gets kids up and moving when they are learning, but it allows the students to imerge themselves into a world that they would likely not to experince otherwise. In this context I am thinking older grades in reference to events of history. Yet, there are other applications to drama in the classroom as well, things that I wouldn't have thought of before our lesson about it. For instance using it as an assessment tool. I would tend to have it be an activity that the kids build up to inorder to review at the end before the assessment, but it works just as well the other way, if not better for those students who have a difficult time with test taking.

It was extremely fun to do the interviewer game where both A and B students had different tools, and I also think its a great way of getting students to maybe take an interest in news. It can be really boring just watching two people talk on the news, but with some schema maybe they might take more interest in it. The second game we played Hot seat, was also really great, especially to re-introduce or review with students (or assess of course). And finally the specialist game where each of the tables gave their specialitys and opinions on an event was great for anaylzis, something I definitely will be using in my classroom.

Reflection 1: Activities in the Classroom

Today in class it really astonished me to play the story as one game. I really wasn't expecting to follow along as someone else was telling a story, and then to be picked and totally blank out what to say! It was a really good experince though, and I think it would be fun to use in the classroom, I definitely tried teaching it to my friends afterwards! The next game we played was the A-Z sentence game, where everyone adds their own unique sentence to the story starting with a given letter. I got to say this game was really hard. My letter was C and I had a horrible time coming with a start to the sentence, I kept on wanting to say Come, but that sounded wrong so finally I went with a name. :)

One of the things that really hit me was how important it was to make sure that creativity was a part of the every day classroom. With time being as restricted as it is making sure that there is some part of creative arts in every lesson goes a long way to not only help the students learn whatever subject it is, but also allow them to flurish in a system that sometimes does the opposite of what its supposed to. I am really looking forward to the rest of the class :)