Good Morning Music!

Do you have enough energy this morning? Will this music help?

What's with the Flying Piano?

Why I take the piano on the road … and in the air

Cups Rhythm Inspiration

The Voice Kids - You're Gonna Miss Me When I'm Gone

Welcome to the banquet! There is a banquet of arts learning spread before you - see the links to your classmates' blogs at the right side of this page. One thing about blogging - it is meant to be public and a successful post is one that gets comments. So please browse whenever you have a little down time and pick up a few lesson ideas as well as a little encouragement to see yourself as an artist/musician/dramatist/dancer or at least an arts ally in education! If you visit a blog, please leave an encouraging comment or a thoughtful question.

My Next Arts Integration Project: The Gammage Cup

Some of you were amazed at how well the art integrated with The Tale of Despereaux Novel Study. I want to tell you that I can't take credit for that - the author of the novel, Kate de Camillo, built the art references into her story and gave readers wonderful language to provoke exploration of the light and dark in the hearts of her characters and in the world. What I did is recognize a wonderful opportunity for Arts Integration and you can do that, too. I want to make sure you know that I had no idea what chiaroscuro meant before I read this book - I looked it up and made a lesson out of it! It takes some extra time to research a lesson like this but if you do it whenever you can, borrow ideas from other teachers, and collect others from books, websites, etc., it won't be long before you have many lessons/units that are engaging for you as well as your students. The art references aren't as strong in most novels as they are in Despereaux but I am excited when I find new literature that has arts integration potential. When I taught grade 7, a few of my students talked often about The Gammage Cup, a novel they had read and loved in grade 6. It is an older book but when I read it I could see why they loved it. And there is certainly a strong message about being your own unique self and doing things your own way, as well as learning to value other people who do so. I don't have a copy with me today but an image that remains in my mind from the book is an orange door. A character in the book is criticized and made fun of by everyone in her village because she painted her door orange instead of the acceptable brown. The colours of doors in this village are mentioned often, to emphasize the theme of individuality. I think the visual image of the orange door, once a student has read the book, could be a strong antidote for peer pressure!

From STEM to STEAM: Why children need science, technology, engineering, math AND the ARTS!

University of Florida’s Online Master of Arts in Art Education

406 Art Show 2013

Here is a photo from our Children's Art Show last year. The show allowed teacher candidates to see a wide range of art displayed and to gather inspiration and ideas for their own lessons. I am confident that your Arts Gala will do the same! I have a few more photos on my phone and I will try to post them - it looks as though I will need to put only one photo in each post.

Arts Integration Morning Song

The sun is up, the day is bright We'll dance our learning in the morning light. We'll sing it, draw it, act it, too. We'll practice 'til our face turns blue. The arts ch-ch ch Let's start ch-ch ch Right now!

Just to let you know that I'm "refining" again (that important step in the creative process!). I am thinking that I kind of like the "silly" line - "practice 'til our face turns blue" - maybe kids will like it. And it speaks, quite seriously actually, to the value of the arts for teaching focus and discipline to perfect a work for exhibition or a performance for presentation. So of course, I think we need an image to go with the song, and I used Google image to find some primary and intermediate inspiration! Smurfs sing and Braveheart brought passion to all that he did. Let's be Arts Warriors!

Arts-based Research: Flourish!

These are pieces from my Flourish! Art-based Research Project. The creative process for arts-based research is this: Explore a topic or an idea through reading, viewing from many sources. Express your learning about the topic or idea through an art form - visual art, music, drama, or dance. Review the body of work that you have done and see what has been important to you in your learning about the topic. Reflect on and write about your learning. In my Flourish Project, I have been reading positive psychology books and articles on happiness - what it is and how human beings experience it. As a calligrapher - someone who loves the visual impact of writing - I enjoy the play on words. In positive psychology, to flourish is to thrive or to enjoy a high level of well-being. In calligraphy, you can embellish your work with a flourish when you have mastered the discipline of the craft enough to add your own creative touches. I think that even the play on words teaches something about human happiness - that achieving happiness is a daily discipline. I just wanted to share a bit of my own visual art journey with you here. And to model for you the kind of creative process that you might use for your Meaningful Metaphor assignment, if that's the one you choose. Rest assured that I don't expect all of you to become calligraphers. But I do hope to see you create something that is personally authentic and meaningful to you.

Flourish!

I am taking risks with this work because I already know how to do lettering with pen and ink but not with acrylic paints and a brush. And I am trying to use two colours of paint on the brush for a special effect, inspired by Korean leather painting and also by the popular folk art painting style called "one stroke". So far, I have been a bit frustrated with my progress because I thought I could master the new techniques without too much practice and move more quickly to the part where my mind, eyes, and hand work together to produce an image just as I envision it. But as my daughter explains to her students, getting all our parts to work together like that takes lots of practice and lots of patience. So I do need to practice more before I will be satisfied with the final product. But this is my best practice page so far!

End of the Day Routine & Song: Sing Your Way Home

I found an end of the day routine to be so helpful for getting students to share the responsibility of classroom cleanup before they went home. Of course, they always wanted to be dismissed as soon as possible but it wasn't long before they learned that dismissal depended on whether they had put away their chairs and shoes, cleaned up around their desks, and written in their homework books or agendas. At the beginning of the year I had to allow more time to accomplish all this but the routine became more efficient over time, as long as I was consistent. The song signalled that most students were ready and standing beside their desks, ready to be dismissed with a touch. At first I moved around and touched students gently on the shoulder when I saw that their things were put away and their floor was clean but it wasn't long before a student could do that and I could stand at the door and say good-bye as they left (also supervise the hallway!) I don't have the music for the End of the Day song that I used with both primary and intermediate students but I found a version on YouTube in case you want to remember the melody: Sing Your Way Home video

. This singer's voice seems uncomfortably high to me and I am not sure about the pink guitar! But it may be enough to jog your memory if you want to use this song or to remind you to look for your own musical accompaniment for getting ready to go home.

Socratic Seminar: A Great Way to Discuss Readings

The Socratic Seminar has been one of my favourite discussion strategies for master's students. Many of my students have used the Socratic Seminar strategy with their upper intermediate and secondary students successfully, too. To prepare for our class # 3, I found a new website that has a detailed description of the strategy. What is even more interesting for me is that the strategy can be used to explore and discuss a piece of art work. However, in our case the "piece" to explore will be the introduction to the BC Arts curricula. And our focus questions will be What are the benefits of arts education and where have you seen these benefits? and What are creative risks and how can we create the conditions for them to occur? Where have we seen this happen? Here are the basic expectations for you, the "participants". Participants… 1.…must refer directly to the text whenever possible. 2.…can always “pass” when asked to speak. 3.…are not allowed to speak if unprepared 4..…must ask follow-up questions for clarification when they are confused. 5.…stay focused on the current conversation—make notes if something unrelated comes up so it can be discussed later. 6.…speak up when they have something to say—do not raise your hands. 7.…must always look at the speaker and listen carefully. 8.…must speak so all can hear. 9.…must talk to each other, not to the leader. 10.…must recognize that the quality of this discussion depends each of you individually—your participation makes the discussion a success.

Music that Sounds Like Honey!

In The Tale of Despereaux, the mouse risks his life above the floorboards in the castle to hear the beautiful music that sounds like honey. In the arts-integrated novel study that I developed for this book, I invited students to find and share examples of music that sounded like honey. For me, that sound happens when I hear the perfectly harmonious notes of a symphony orchestra - so many instruments playing but contributing to one smooth sound! We are so lucky to have a Symphony Orchestra in Prince George. There are two concerts this fall that you could attend to document in your Individual Choice Assignment Blog, Scrapbook, or Sketchbook or represent somehow in your Arts-based Research or Construction project. Here is a link to the Prince George Symphony Orchestra homepage and the upcoming concerts are the Autumn Symphony on Oct. 4 and Beethoven: Hands and Spirit on Nov. 15.

I have worked with the book, The Tale of Despereaux, to create an arts-integrated novel study. I hope to share more of that work with you in the future. But for today, let's just introduce the novel and the movie with a short read aloud and the trailer for the recent movie. For students who do not visualize when they read/listen, do you think it would be beneficial to show a movie trailer such as this before you read the book aloud or assign it as reading for a novel study? For those who can visualize well for themselves, do you think seeing the characters as they are depicted in the movie trailer would discourage or replace their own images? Let's have that conversation in the comments for this post...

The Artist's Way - Julia Cameron Helps The World Understand Creativity

From Amazon for 2002 Edition: The Artist’s Way is the seminal book on the subject of creativity. An international bestseller, millions of readers have found it to be an invaluable guide to living the artist’s life. Still as vital today—or perhaps even more so—than it was when it was first published one decade ago, it is a powerfully provocative and inspiring work. In a new introduction to the book, Julia Cameron reflects upon the impact of The Artist’s Way and describes the work she has done during the last decade and the new insights into the creative process that she has gained. Updated and expanded, this anniversary edition reframes The Artist’s Way for a new century. Click here: Julia Cameron to vist Julia Cameron's official website.

Witness My Fitness Challenge

If you climb the stairs to the fourth floor, borrow a piece of coloured chalk and add a leaf to the concrete wall. Let's see how quickly we can beautify the stairwell. (Please use the chalk for appropriate images only and let me know if you see any use that is not something we can be proud of as professional teachers.)Think about how visual art can be used to symbolize success, build community, forge group identity, and so on.

406 Class #2: Ish Your Way to Excellence!

For our second class, on Thursday, Sept. 9, 1. Welcome Read Aloud: Ish by Peter Reynolds - to prompt thinking about how excellence is impossible if we are afraid to begin and to make mistakes along the way! 2. Thought for the Day: From Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way for Parents and The Artist's Way Everyday: A Year of Creative Living. Reawaken your own sense of wonder and curiosity so that you can do the same for children! 3. Arts Strength Team Cheer - develop, practice, present. Include variety in volume, pitch, coordinated group movement, sense of celebration. Peer assessment using forms from last day. Stars and Steps to share highlights of peer assessment. 4. Reflect on the Creative Process used to create your cheer. Consider how this process relates to Bloom's Taxonomy, either the original or recently revised version. 5. Review Assignments, choose preferences to be finalized in course outline 6. Team Time - work on Presentation for Thursday 7. Readings Review: Socratic Seminar in a Fish Bowl - Arts IRP K-7 Overview, 2010 8. Witness My Fitness Challenge 9. For next class: Be ready to present on your Team's Overview and Organizers. 10. For Tuesday: Read the remainder of the IRP for your Team. Note vocabulary and concepts that a teacher unfamiliar with this art area might find difficult to teach without additional resources.

406 Class #1 Leaping Into the Unknown

On Thursday, Sept. 4, 2014, our class met for the first time. 1. Read Aloud: "Scaredy Squirrel" by Melanie Watt - to prompt thinking about risk-taking in life and in the arts. 2. Draw Right Now: The Shape of Your Day - We drew and interpreted the drawings in triads. We identified PLOs that could be met with this activity and we assessed our own drawings with a Quick Check - a generic self-assessment strategy that can be applied to any activity. 3. We completed a Personal Inventory of Arts Experiences. After this, you divided yourselves into Arts Strength groups, based on your inventories. 4. For next class, read Arts Education K-7 Overview 2010 (Ministry of Education IRP) 5. Next class (#2) we will finalize the assignment choices so that they can be be reflected in the course outline.