Excitement for School

Today at the middle school we had a fundraising event called “Bike for Bagwell”. This is an even to raise money for the American Cancer Society. Teachers spend about 2o minutes of their riding a stationary bike in their classroom. As teachers are riding the students are encouraged to put collected change into the buckets. When students run out of money, teachers stop riding, and the bike is moved on to the next classroom. The goal is to bring in enough money to ware out the teachers, or have them riding throughout the whole school day. Classroom teachers rode in their classrooms through out the day, and elective teachers and faculty members rode during the lunch periods. This is where the true excitement came in. As we walked closer to the lunchroom, on our way to lunch, we could hear muffled sounds and a faint beat of familiar music.  To our surprise, there was a small dance party, taking place in the cafeteria. Teachers were on stage peddling away, as students donated money to request songs. The kids were so excited to hear their favorite band, “One Direction” playing over the sound system. The squeals from all the 6ixth graders mocked the same squeals received by Elvis Presley in the documentary we were watching in Social Studies. 

            Activities such as these provide a morale boost towards the end of the year. Having the students engaged in raising money, and celebrating their efforts to raise money, takes away from a boring ordinary school day and livens it up.  The students were so excited about coming to school today and were still able to complete their assignments. Changing up the daily routine provided for some enthusiasm for school and learning today without disrupting the learning environment. Students were able to relax a little during lunch and enjoy their time out of class. I believe this rejuvenated them and made them eager to go back to class. I think it is important that schools have days or events like these. When students and even teachers have something different to look forward to at school, it encourages a love for school, and a sense of community.

“Bike for Bagwell” is a huge part of the community and is a wonderful effort to raise money to Cancer research. When the school encourages events such as these it brings all the students together and provides them with an opportunity to enjoy school.

Reading for the Art Room

There are so many ways to incorporate reading in the art room. These include, lesson plans, using vocabulary and arts terms in instruction and around the room, learning to talk about artwork, journaling and reading during free time.  Picture books and other textbooks are a great way to read to young students and provide aid for instruction. I use picture books as inspiration for styles or ideas for a project. I also provide vocabulary terms and other literacy aids during instruction and for general knowledge in the art room. For older students, journaling at the beginning and end of class allows students expand on vocabulary and ideas discussed in class. At this age too, students are learning how to talk about artwork and exercising the connection between imagery and writing. Free time in the art classroom is another great way to support literacy. By providing word puzzles and other spelling/reading games helps encourage children to read.

Another way to incorporate literacy in the art classroom, that provides inspiration and creativity, is reading whether it be reading to the students or having them reading during their free time. Reading trade books allows students to jump into a story. Imaginations are expanded when you open a book and enter a new world. Access to trade books in the art classrooms promotes literacy and development for students.

My last post was about the bookmarking site, Diigo, and how I use it to save resources for professional development and instruction in the classroom. Another type of bookmarking site, or a more literal way to bookmark is using Shelfari. Shelfari is a site for saving and tagging books that you have read. I think this is a great way to share books with other teachers and even students and save books used in instruction. I was introduced to Shelfari in an undergraduate secondary literacy class.  Our responsibilities were to read grade level and subject appropriate books and tag them on our Shelfari profile. This was easy to do because we were excited to read books that were “blessed” by our professor. The professor would stand up in front of the class and would engage the class in a certain book’s plot, details or characters that encourage us to want to read these books. This is a great way to get your students excited about reading.  

I hope you find Shelfari useful in your classroom for instruction and to encourage literacy. 

Shelfari Profile

http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/3192550?uid=3739520&uid=2129&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=56059494673

Social Bookmarking for the Classroom

Over the past couple of weeks I have been working on building up a library on the social bookmarking site, Diigo. A social bookmarking site is a way to save and organize information that you have found on the Internet. You make a title for your information, post the URL and a description of the source and you can even add tags, or phrase words that help you organize. Tags can be created to help you separate different between different topics or types of sources. These allow you to click on a Tag and you now have access to all of your Internet sources that you have found under this category. Until now I did not really have away to keep up with things I have found interesting of helpful on the Internet. If I did try to save it I would save it under my favorites, and always forget about it. Now I have a way to store everything I have found useful for education, art and teaching in my classroom, and I can share all of this with friends and other users of Diigo.

I have been posting all the wonderful videos and articles that I have been introduced to through my classmates and other bloggers. These will be things that I have to read for professional development and things I can use to incorporate into my classroom activities and instruction. I found some great sites and blogs that I will use to get new ideas and inspirations for projects. Some over these resources include, Art21, a website about 21^st century and contemporary art, ALEX, for course of study and standards, and blogs and websites of other Art Teachers. I hope that by sharing my sources, other Diigo users and Art teachers find my library helpful by reading some of the articles and exploring new ways of teaching for the 21^st learning, finding inspiration and ideas for their classrooms and by sharing information with me so that I might learn from them.

I have attached my bookmarking library from Diigo. Please fill free to explore these ideas and save them on your own sites. I hope that you enjoy!!

http://www.diigo.com/user/bklynmarie

Free time in the Art room

            Free time in the Art Room: I have observed many art rooms and have seen a variety of ideas to use for free time in the classroom, when students have finished working on the projects. I have seen free draw, origami, reading, sitting quietly, a collaborative class project, and much much more. For middle and high school students you will find that most of these activities work to keep students busy during free time. At this age students are working with more extravagant projects that they tend to take their time on and when they do finish earlier, they are excited by unusual free time and cherish it with drawing or working on other things. Working with elementary students is a little different. I have found that they need more structure and less freedom with how to spend their time.

            What isn’t working and why: Although I hate to say that elementary students can not handle free time, with out the proper discipline and expectations, students may not use this time productively. I have seen students given paper, scissors, tape, staplers, and much more to use during their free time. This definitely doesn’t work with younger kids because they misuse the supplies. The students are so excited to have these materials available to them that they rush through their art projects because they are just looking forward to what they can do during freed time. Don’t get me wrong, students should be able to use their imaginations and explore, but with some guidelines and appreciation for their materials.

            Kindergarten: I think my biggest fear is finding positive activities to use with Kindergarteners that still allows for self-exploration but supports goals and standards for the students’ developments. This age is hard to find successful art projects that aren’t too “crafty” and hold their attentions for the whole class period. I have been doing some research and have come across an idea that I can’t believe I have never thought of before. The blog I have posted below was inspiration for these ideas.

            Plans to solve poorly structured free time: Centers, duh!! I have been reading a lot about how Pre-K and Kindergarten classrooms are set up in centers to provide support for short attention spans and development of certain skills. So why not use centers in the art room? I think that this is definitely worth a shot in my first art room. Instead of trying to have instruction and work on art projects, and keep the little ones’ attention for 45 minutes, I plan to use centers or rotations to keep everyone focused, learning and exploring. I would like to use time to have class discussion and instruction and two centers, one that involves the daily art project and the other for an extra activity to promote exploration and development. I think that providing two activities within one class can help little attention spans stay focused and provide structure for positive behaviors and learning.

Blog for Inspiration