Feeling Hot, Hot, Hot

There’s a popular drama strategy called Hot Seat.

www.dramatoolkit.co.uk says the game is “a widely used and very effective Drama strategy. Questions are asked to someone sitting in the ‘hot–seat‘ who answers in character. Set this up by telling the class they will have an opportunity to ask questions to a character from the piece they are studying or story.”

Students take turns acting as the character in the hot seat and acting as the interviewer interviewing the character. I used this after I read the book “The True Story of the Three Little Pigs” by Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith to a grade 5 class. We discussed what the wolf’s point of view was about what happened with the pigs. Students worked in groups taking turns in the hot seat acting as the wolf while the others were the interviewers. The interviewer’s job was to ask important questions and the wolf’s job was to answer them in character.

Teachers can use this drama game to have the students be in the Hot Seat as the famous person they have studied. The student in the hot seat is the famous person while the other students are the interviewers asking important questions about the person. This can be used as an assessment tool to observe how well the students researched their person, how well the students can develop important questions, and observe drama skills such as gesture, voice, and emotion.

Hot Seat can be used for many reasons using many different real and fake people/characters.

I have a document that I’d like to share with fictitious facts about the wolf that was used to help guide the questions and answers. I’m trying to find it! 😦  I also have a video I’d like to post showing some of my students engaged in the Hot Seat strategy. Check back soon!

Arts Integration: A PowToon Explains

Here’s a PowToon to explain arts integration. PowToon is a free platform for creating interesting and creative presentations to share. Below is a PowToon created using one of the the platform’s many templates ready for you to use to create your own presentation. Watch below:

https://www.powtoon.com/embed/cX20dp3wwSV/“>

I hope you have learned about arts integration and are looking into using PowToon to create presentations either for you and your students or WITH them.

Happy PowTooning and Art Integrating!

Arts Integration Lesson Assessment

Have you ever wondered how you could wrap up a lesson involving arts integration that assesses the student’s learning in both the art form and subject area? Here’s a great example on how to accomplish this goal.

A third grade teacher and a visual arts teacher co-taught an arts integrated lesson. It combined the following standards:

Visual Arts: I can create art using line and variation.

Anchor Standard – Generate and conceptualize artistic ideas and work. VA:Cr1.1.3 – Elaborate on an imaginative idea.

Subject Area: I can describe character traits. 

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.3.3 Describe characters in a story (e.g., their traits, motivations, or feelings) and explain how their actions contribute to the sequence of events.

___________________________________________________

Upon completion of the lesson, as a whole group, students brainstormed what they learned in both areas while the teachers filled out a Venn Diagram on the board.

The students in this classroom have a designated arts integration notebook called “My Palette Journal” where they record the arts integration lessons goals and reflect on what they learned.

 

 

Visual Arts Elements Song/Video

I was searching for a kid friendly chart of visual elements and came across this youtube video of a song teaching kids the visual arts. I thought I’d share!

Click the picture below to see the video.

I suggest classroom teachers who use the arts integration approach should show this video to your students to express your interest in the elements and your plan to use them in your lessons.

 

Great App for Integrating Drama

Animate Me

Animate Me is a great iPhone/iPad app to use with your students. Recently, I used this as part of a lesson that included portrait paintings, opinion & monologue writing, and performing. The lesson included the classroom, art, writing, and drama (myself) teachers.

The lesson started with the classroom and writing teacher working with the students on opinion writing. The topic was favorite seasons. The students used an OREO writing organizer as a guide for their written piece. If you search google images for OREO organizers you will find many versions of it.

After they wrote their opinion pieces, the students picked one of those seasons. I (drama teacher) came in and guided the students in turning one of the reasons, for the season being their favorite, into a monologue. The students had time to write a short monologue that exploded that one reason. Once the monologue was written, I worked with the students on how to perform a monologue. Then using the self portraits the students had done with their classroom teacher, I had the students perform their monologue with the Animate Me app.

What is Integrating the Arts?

The Kennedy Center has a great definition for integrating the arts:

Did you notice that the above definition specifies how integration CONNECTS an art form with another subject area and meets objectives in BOTH. So what does that mean?

The easiest way I can explain it is to think about skills that you want students to learn in a subject area. Then, think about what art form you feel comfortable teaching (especially if you are a beginner at this) and best assists you meeting those goals. Next, look deeply at the art form. Research it’s elements and standards. Find an element or a standard that matches what you’re planning on doing.

EXAMPLE

Math Skill: Measurement (inches, cm, etc.)

Visual Art Element: Line  (website on visual arts elements)

Lesson: Students draw a series of random lines. Students use ruler to measure and label length of the lines. (Curvy lines are okay too. Yarn can be used to measure the line and lined up straight on a ruler to see the length of the curvy line.) Students’ attention is drawn to the various types of lines:

• Curved lines
• Horizontal lines
• Vertical lines
• Jagged lines

Students are then shown artwork and analyze or (notice deeply) the lines used to create it. Below is a sample of artwork you could use:

After you have identified the type of line used in the artwork, students can now create their own. You can give them certain lengths of lines that you want them to use in their creation. You could also have them include certain shapes made by lines of specified lengths.

This is a simple integrated arts lesson that teaches a math and an arts standard. Follow my blog to see more posts showing integrated arts lessons.

(This lesson started with the math standard first but you can create a lesson the other way around by picking the arts standard first.)

Thanks for reading! 😀

-Marly

Making a Commercial: Using Improv with Opinion Writing

4th graders made commercials to express opinions with reasons and explanations. They used a graphic organizer called an OREO to gather their ideas. Then they performed their commercials using improvisation. The below video shows some of their commercials.

Making a Commercial Video

Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS)

Visual Thinking Strategies allow students to engage in higher level thinking skills. It “is a method initiated by teacher-facilitated discussions of art images and documented to have a cascading positive effect on both teachers and students. It is perhaps the simplest way in which teachers and schools can provide students with key behaviors sought by Common Core Standards: thinking skills that become habitual and transfer from lesson to lesson, oral and written language literacy, visual literacy, and collaborative interactions among peers.”

VTS Website

Visual Arts & Technology

Using Technology to Enhance Your Visual Arts Connections

Below is a link to an interesting article.

Web Sitings: Virtual Art, Real Learning by Julie Wood

http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/article/web-sitings-virtual-art-real-learning

This is a great way to incorporate web searches and arts. Students can create their own virtual museum showcasing images they found that go with any given topic.

More Integrating Music

Here is a link that brings you to some ideas for lessons integrating music into your classroom.

Education World

Here’s a link that brings you to lesson plans and songs that focus on science and math.

Sing About Science and Math

Here’s a link to an article about integrating music into math lessons

Integrating Music and Math