Collaboration of the Arts

Picture Prompt:

http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/tiep/ho_37.165.32.htm#

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Collaboration in the Arts                                                                                                                                                                                              02/04/2009

  Prompt Persuasion 

Teaching art is important because creative activities are a direct link to learning and development.

         First when a child gets involved with art at a young age they are encouraged to use there imagination. This helps them to communicate with others because there verbal skills are not fully developed and they communicate through their paintings. Their paintings could be random and have no meaning like a dream or it could also relate to something that they remember and had an impact on them. When children use painting to stimulate their imagination they are working out their fantasies and at the same time honing in on their verbalization skills.

           The second point I want to make is that art is a venue in which a child can use to understand the world around them. Think of a child who paints a painting of other people. In the beginning you see the figure with a large circle with eyes two sticks for arms and two sticks for legs. If you think about it that’s all they are looking at when they talk to you.  As the child becomes more aware of the things around them the figure develops along with the child. This is such an important process in the development stages of childhood because if a child doesn’t develop these attributes they will be unable to decipher the feelings they are having and turn that into a child with negative energy with no way of knowing how to release it. This type of child becomes destructive instead of constructive.      

           The last point I want to make is we don’t really teach art we supply the material and the students make the choices. We guide them through the process in the end the outcome is theirs. This process builds confidence in the student to make decisions. 

             Teaching art to students promotes the creative process. It stimulates and inspires children in so many ways and so many areas in their lives. Inhibiting their creativity stifles their imagination process and encourages destructive behavior to compensate for how they are feeling.

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 2/25/2009

My First Day Experience

    After the children finish their homework they are taken by group and grade to various rooms within the school. The aids have come up with activities for them about the theme of the week. Each activity is fifteen minutes long. This week’s theme is North America. Mrs. D has the children doing a crossword puzzle, Mr. H is having then play a memory card game, I am doing a poetry prompt with a drawing exercise and they also have time in the gym to play. Total time one hour. 

    I am in the art room there are six large square tables with stools for the children to sit on. The first group comes in with ten students in this group and they are in second grade. ( they know me because I substitute there so they wave hello to me as they come in )I have them sit at the two front tables near the blackboard. I first ask the students “Can anyone tell me what is the theme for this week?” They began to tell me at random “America!” “The fifty States!” “Earth!” one boy shouted, the other students laughed. I said “That’s correct we are learning about North America, where we live.” Next I asked “how do you feel about living in North America.” (This time I asked them to raise their hands to answer). Hands went up. One little girl said “COLD” another said “lucky?” others said they didn’t really think about it. I then said  “Did you know you hear a song everyday that tells you how a person feels about America?” They looked around the room and then back at me. I continued and said “ a woman named Katharine Lee Bates wrote the song titled  America theBeautiful   and it’s how she feels about America?” Then some of the students knew what I was talking about and shook their heads. I told them “it’s a song now, but it started out as a poem.” I said “ I’m going to read it to you and I want you to listen to the words and how Katarine Lee Bates is describing America in her words and how she feels about the place where she’s from.” I read the poem to them.

     I then handed out large white paper and crayons and I told them I wanted them to draw a picture of what they saw in the poem when I read it to them. I played the tune for them on the computer and as I walked around the room I heard some students humming the tune as they colored. I hope they hear the song differently next time it’s played.

http://kids.niehs.nih.gov/lyrics/america.htm ( Lyrics and Tune)

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 3/2/2009

 Prompt to share with students.

The poem “March Here”  looks like the poet wrote sentences and then omitted parts. I thought it would be fun to write sentences about a month of the year I liked ,what I think about that month and omit parts of the sentence after I’m done writing. I chose March too.

March is the 3rd month of the year.

St. Patricks day is in March.

We wear green on that day.

it is still cold in March.

two more months to go from march.

spring comes after march.

Patricks birthday’s March 9th.

He is going to be 17.

March is a good month.

With omitted words…

The 3rd month, St. Patricks day.

Wear green, it’s still cold.

To go, after March.

9th, he is going.

March is good.