Art Integrated Lesson Plans for Elementary Students in Florida

Minds in Bloom welcomes Jenny, the owner of Art with Jenny K., with her post on art integration. We know y'all'll detect it useful!

"The creative adult is the kid that survived."

I came across this quote by author Ursala Le Guin a few months ago, and it has stuck with me e'er since. It encapsulates why it is then important to integrate creative arts into the learning process. It is motivation for everything I do as an fine art educator and as a Teachers Pay Teachers resource developer. Art integration tin can be your best "tool" for engaging, motivating, and inspiring your students, and, most importantly, keeping creativity alive. And it'southward easier than y'all remember!

Before we can talk about what art integration is, why information technology's important, and how to utilise information technology, nosotros must first talk about the almost of import part—the students it serves. Imagine in front of you lot is a 5-yr-onetime. Y'all hand him or her a marker, and he immediately takes it and begins to use it. He doesn't demand instructions. He is not apologetic about his work. He doesn't expect at you and say, "I'one thousand sorry; I can merely draw stick people." He hardly cares what you think most his work. This is creativity and problem solving in its purest course.

Art integration is the tool we need in instruction to help usa preserve the innate creativity of a child. Children come up to us bursting at the seams with free energy, creativity, and the desire to learn. English author and art pedagogy advocate Sir Ken Robinson is famous for saying that we actually teach inventiveness out of children. His TED talk on "How Schools Kill Creativity" is exceptional. His stories will make you laugh out loud (LOL!)—and who doesn't need that?!

What is Art Integration?

Art integration is hands-on, project-based learning using art materials, songs, poetry, plays, trip the light fantastic toe, etc., to make students learn in ways that connect to prior knowledge and make their learning relevant to their lives through engagement.

In 2010, I was making a presentation to the National Council for Teachers of English (NCTE) conference in Florida describing an art integration lesson, Trading Pages, that I had published in SchoolARTS. At the stop of the session, teachers flooded my desk to see some of the art techniques I had mentioned in my presentation.

I realized that classroom teachers were hungry for this information and wanted badly to use the arts in their classrooms but fear was property them dorsum. In talking with them, I learned why the idea was so scary. But it shouldn't exist. So permit's clear up some of those things hither and dispense with that giddy notion once and for all!

Misconceptions nigh Art Integration

1. "I'k not talented."

Art integration has nada to do with talent on the part of the teacher or the kid. I'm not a talented singer (in fact, I'm quite terrible), simply my students don't intendance. When I sing the steps to our cartoon lessons, they are completely engaged, and they sing along with me. I'd exist embarrassed if my chief walked in, but the kids are forgiving and pay shut attention! The students do about of the piece of work anyway; you just demand to provide them the means and opportunity.

2. "I'll accept to teach everything with a messy art project."

Art integration does non replace the importance of teaching reading, writing, math, and science in traditional means; it just provides a tool to make that teaching more engaging to the child when it is advisable—and information technology doesn't take to be messy!

3. "Art isn't of import."

In his popular book, The Arts and the Creation of Heed, Elliot Eisner is famous for his list of the 10 reasons the arts are and so important. His No. 1 reason is, "The arts teach children to brand adept judgments nigh qualitative relationships. Dissimilar much of the curriculum in which correct answers and rules prevail, in the arts, it is judgment rather than rules that prevails." Imagination sparks inspiration, and inspiration leads to success. Eisner's other nine reasons why the arts are so important build on this idea further and are worth exploring.

4. "I don't accept time to let my kids color."

This is nigh integrating to make all learning more meaningful. It is a tool to help you lot, non to make more than work for you. The best resource is your kids—let them dream up the projects to guide their learning.

Why Is Art Integration So Of import?

"Give a man a fish; you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish; and you take fed him for a lifetime."

Think of fine art integration as the same sort of approach. We don't know what the globe has in shop for our children, but we know that they must exist ready to face the challenges as artistic thinkers and trouble solvers. They must be able to recall (fish) for themselves. They must likewise have the confidence that comes with feel so they know that they tin take risks and investigate ideas they have. Children who are only required to take tests and be either correct or wrong learn to fear mistakes, which translates to fear of learning. Employ art integration to appoint your students again and excite them about the process of learning, not the answers or cease results.

Art integration is then much easier than you lot think because it requires that the teacher but facilitate the experience—the children themselves create and design the feel.

Means to Employ Art Integration in Your Classroom

You can…

• Use choice-based learning so students have the opportunity to experiment with various media, like clay and paint (the messy stuff you don't want to do with the entire class).
• Larn about different cultures by making the art that is popular from that region; for example, Aboriginal art from Australia or masks from Africa.
• Let students listen to music that is related to any unit y'all are teaching. They will fight y'all (because initially they think that your music isn't "hip"), merely practise it anyhow—information technology sinks in in the stop.
• Employ artists like Monet to teach symmetry, Dali to teach telling time, Mondrian to teach math, or Escher to teach tessellations.
• Create monsters and robots using only the geometric shapes you are studying.
• Make up songs about what you lot are learning.
• Allow students illustrate and write a sequel to their favorite book or an alternating catastrophe to their favorite story.
• Let students create plays nigh their learning.
• Sing to your children, instead of giving your students instructions in your normal voice. Try singing to them—you'll get their attention!
• Let your students take trip the light fantastic breaks when they are getting restless.
• Have your students invent games based on the learning they have done in course.

Just let their imaginations stir yours…

M.C. Escher and Leonardo Da Vinci were great mathematicians, scientists, and artists. Just mostly, they were great thinkers! With the permission of Fine art Teaching Professor Dr. Craig Roland, I accept adapted his list, "Learning to Think Similar an Creative person," into a kid-friendly poster. Download it for Gratis by clicking on the prototype beneath.

Desire a lesson yous can use right at present?

Among the virtually useful (and most popular) art integrations lessons I have created for classroom teachers are my "Popular Art"-style interactive coloring sheets. All students—kindergarten to high schoolhouse—love to colour, and so I designed coloring sheets that crave a lot of thinking on the part of the student and little to no prep on the part of the teacher (a great combination, no?!). No two end results ever turn out same, and all the skills of a creative thinker are necessary to complete them.

My interactive coloring sheets work like this:

I take created a collection of outlines/shapes of symbols associated with holidays, seasons and other topics related to what you may be teaching. All the shapes are broken upward by black lines to create smaller shapes—which gives the images their "Popular Fine art" experience. At the bottom of each page are boxes with patterns in them. The students are asked to fill up the shapes with these patterns. Information technology takes a great bargain of idea to decide which patterns to put where, what colors to use and even when a infinite should be left without patterns. The cracking news is that there is no correct or wrong answer to these coloring sheets…and the more students work on them, the more than confident they become in making decisions. I often include some writing prompts, every bit many of the teachers that use my coloring sheets pair them with writing assignments. Hither is what i teacher said well-nigh using these coloring sheets:

I found that my 5th/6th graders come to me and, because of the focus on testing, never played with colour or pattern or patterns. Your coloring sheets give them that opportunity, and I've seen so much improvement in their attention to detail, as well as noticing patterns, lines, etc. It's so much more than than "just coloring." ~E.D.

You can try ane of my coloring sheets now by clicking HERE to download my FREE apple coloring sheet that is part of the "Encounter and Teach" free ebook series.Final Thoughts

The pendulum will swing toward testing, abroad from testing, and dorsum once again. Anyone in education for many years tin tell you, they have seen it all. Things come up in, and then they go out, and the bicycle repeats. Yet, ane thing will never change, and that is that children need to exist able to safely and confidently brand decisions on their own. In a testing saturated world, students are used to beingness identified with a score, grade, or quantitative assessment of some kind. His or her "ideas" are non necessarily important to anyone. Permit's change that by providing more artistic moments for our children and permit's sentry our children alter along.

Thank you for reading!

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Jenny Knappenberger is an honour-winning educator who has taught art to middle school, unproblematic, and gifted children in Virginia and in Arizona. Jenny is besides a professional person ballroom dancer and instructed for over 8 years in Virginia earlier committing full-fourth dimension every bit an art instructor in Arizona. Her favorite little creative person is her 2-year-old girl who gets to attempt out mommy's never-ending list of ideas! Jenny is the owner of Fine art with Jenny G. and is dedicated to making fine art integration easy and exciting for classroom teachers. She is also the author of www.jennyknappenberger.com.

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Source: https://minds-in-bloom.com/art-integration-for-classroom-teachers/

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