reflection #7

This past week we discussed our arts lessons from field. There were so many fun idea that I loved. I love that dance was used in others field because I think it helps enhance students learning. It gets them moving, and helps clear their minds to help them be open to their lessons. Some other fun activities I saw were the many visual arts lessons, for instance the Indian rug art project where you use crayons, fold the paper and iron to make a symmetrical picture. That would be so fun. It seemed like everyone had such a fun time in field. Together as a class I am sure we could write a book of fun and useful activities that we taught in our field work. It was so fun to see every ones journals and ideas. I loved it!

Field Reflection

Field has been an awesome experience for me! My partner and I have had great experiences with Creative Arts in the classroom. We incorporated Creative Movements, Music and Visual Arts into a couple of our lesson plans and they were so much fun. For one lesson plan we were teaching the students about the Revolutionary War and helped them explore and create a theatrical dance performance to help them remember the different sides and conflicts of the war.
On another day the teacher was teaching the students about symmetric symbols and measurement in a Math lesson. He did something so fun, after his lesson instead of just assigning a page he had the students create their own symmetric art piece using graph paper and colored pencils. This was so fun because it allowed the students to explore but also made them really think about the symmetrical elements and helped them embed this knowledge!
It really has been so much fun and such a joy. I have learned so much and can't wait to start teaching many of these lessons and my own in my own classroom!

#5 Visual Arts

I learned a lot about Visual Arts from the presentation that my group put together as well as from exploring the other groups presentations. It was really interesting to me all the different elements and ways the different artist portrayed the characters and the scenes in their books. Some other things in Visual Art that I found very interesting were the different elements involved in the art. I have never really looked at art in different layers based upon balance, light etc. Now it is is easier for me to look at a picture and some what know what the artist is trying to portray. I really like the lighting affects that different artist use to create the moods of their pictures or books. The different presentations were so fun and learning about all the artists and the different ways they created their art was very interesting and fun.

Reflection #4: Music

I think that music in the classroom should be necessary. Emotions can be affected deeply by music and can really help the learning environment. I loved the mention of using classical music in the classroom to calm and help stimulate students learning. I noticed that even when we used music in our class presentation the emotions of the students really changed and helped keep then engaged and entertained with the lesson. Music is also a very good way to help students learn their lessons and memorization of key element they need to learn.
In my own classroom I plan on using music often. I will use music and a daily starter to help students get out their wiggles and be able to express their feeling for the day. I also plan on using music in the background of lessons and as a calming factor for study. I also plan on using music as a means to help repetition learning's and memorization.

Dance Reflection

Dance, creative movement is really something that I want to incorporate into my classroom/curriculum. I have always felt that dance and music help students open up and feel free to explore. I think that often times it is looked down upon because people associate "dance" with classical ballet or something that would be taught in a dance studio. Yet, they don't realize that creative movement through dance is not the same thing. Creative movement helps students explore physically a concept they are learning about.
For instance, a lesson on Volcanoes, using creative movement to teach such a lesson helps students visually see the formations, helps them be the formations, helps them understand what happened to create it, why it stayed the same or how it evolved. If a student was only told how volcanoes happened they would never really understand or know why such a formation happened.
There is so many ways you can help students with creative movement. It really allows students to put a side their attitudes and appearances. Students have to completely let go and evolve with the flow, they learn self confidence, space and time, social awareness, local motor movements and cooperation. It really is a great way to helps students connect to themselves, their peers and the curriculum being taught.

Drama Reflection

I love the idea of using Drama in the classroom and can really see it being beneficial to the students. Some things I noticed while participating and teaching a drama lesson are that students are forced out of their comfort zone, yet don't feel awkward because it is expected that they be loud, crazy, out of the ordinary because they are playing a "part". Also I think that students can really retain the knowledge they learn better because they can visually see it, they memorize the dialogue, it is an event that becomes a memory to them in turn helping them to retain the lesson in their mind.
I loved in the reading the pantomime approach. I could see the students taking this very seriously, learning their parts and feeling proud to portray the different historical characters. I also love that literacy could be more accurately examined and comprehended. Shakespeare can really be hard to read but acting it out it can be easy comprehended and become another memorable experience for a student.
I think incorporating drama into a core lesson is a very unique and awesome experience for a student. I think it helps with comprehension, literacy, self motivation, social skills besides just teaching the student the core curriculum and it is absolutely beneficial to them.

Reflection #1

I have really enjoyed learning about the different hands on or more creative ways to help students enhance their learning. One thing that I think I would like to really incorporate into my classroom is creative movement in academics. I feel like students often learn better when music is incorporated in their learning but I have watched and read about students learning through creative movement. I recently took a class in creative movement academics and really enjoyed it. I learned to be open minded and expressive. I think that if you had a classroom full of stubborn day dreaming fifth graders I can see how they could come leaps and bounds if they were allowed to move and express themselves. Think what would happen if they were learning while moving and being open minded? It could be magical.
Another activity that I really enjoyed doing in our classroom was the mirror reflection activity. I think it really opened up physical boundaries for us. We no longer could be shy students, we were stretched from our comfort zones and pulled into other boundaries really having to get to know them and express ourselves. I can see this activity working well with students and helping the classroom become more unified, open and more family like.