#artsintegration

Attention all teachers! Join our Teachers Club this summer and stay engaged with free arts-based workshops and experiences offered by our team of art instructors. Our club will meet six times throughout the summer, giving you ample opportunity to connect.

Attention all teachers! Join our Teachers Club this summer and stay engaged with free arts-based workshops and experiences offered by our team of art instructors. Our club will meet six times throughout the summer, giving you ample opportunity to connect with fellow educators and enhance your skills through creative activities. From painting and drawing to dance, spoken word, music, and mixed…

Moton Charter School

3rd Grade, Science + Film

Mr Glazebrook / Ms Simmons / Ms Chambliss

Today was the (hopefully 1st!) Moton Student Short Film Festival. 3rd grade students at Moton worked closely with their KID smART TA Mr Glazebrook as well as with their academic instructors Ms Simmons and Ms Chambliss to brainstorm, develop, prepare, and create short student films.

International School of Louisiana ISL WB

Kinder - 1st Grade Social Studies & Drama

Mr. Zeb & Ms. Elisa, Ms. Iris, Ms. Sulman, Ms. Alma, Ms. Susie, Ms. Mirna

Students in Kindergarten and 1st Grade have been learning about 'My School, My Community, and I'm a Citizen' during Social Studies. Students learned about rules, jobs, traditions/celebrations, and foundational map skills.

Students were led through a guided drama called 'Alphabet City'. The drama was episodic and continued week to week. Students learned about basic drama elements (character, and setting) during arts integrated lessons. They created individual nametags with yarn and index cards that transported them from the classroom to 'Alphabet City'.

While in 'Alphabet City', students were in-role as 'Citizens'. They met Mr. Builder (Teaching Artist) who was looking for help to build a new city. Mr. Builder works for 'The Queen' (classroom teacher). Students in-role as 'Citizens' developed and enacted 'rules, traditions, and jobs' for the new community and presented them to 'The Queen'.

Einstein Middle School

7th-8th Grade Dance x Visual Arts

Ms. Virginia / Mrs. Rankins

For the past two months, Mrs. Rankins' 7th and 8th grade dance classes have been learning a few different routines for the Einstein Middle School Christmas Show. When I started with them, they had just begun to master Bachata, a fun and fast-paced variation of a salsa. After a few weeks of introductory lessons on the elements of art and how they overlap with the elements of dance as well as a class on color, movement, and emotion, we began learning the basics of figure drawing.

Using what we'd built on in the past re: shape, form, and line, we began by observing how any human form can be broken down into a series of simple shapes. As a group, we brainstormed what shapes could represent each part of the body, starting with the head and moving down. With me at the board and them on their papers, we drew a simple form together as an I-do-you-do, and active / free participation was encouraged as we worked together to decide what would look best.

Next, I asked for a series of volunteers to come to the dance floor. One by one, they struck a pose — some sort of frozen dance move — while the rest of the class worked to quickly sketch out the shapes they saw on their paper. I waked around and guided them through a variety of challenges and I-can't-do-it moments. The energy in the room grew noticeably as they realized it was all up to them; the volunteer was in charge of the pose, and they often landed on one after fun back-and-forth with the rest of the class about what looked coolest but also what was easiest to draw. There was a friendly and joyful atmosphere of competition as more volunteers were eager to go and choose a pose and more drawers got excited about what they could see themselves do. As a final round, I asked pairs of volunteers to come to the dance floor and gave them a color that they had to create and strike a pose together to represent.

Finally, we split the class into two groups. While Mrs. Rankins reviewed their Christmas Show Bachata routine with one group, I led the other half through a live-sketching exercise of the dance their classmates were performing. The point was to go quick and fast, trusting your instinct and not getting caught up in perfection. I asked everyone to either pick a dancer to follow and draw their movements or capture the movements of the whole group. It was pretty amazing being able to actively push the students to keep drawing and keep going, to not put their pencils down if they got confused, and instead to move through the stress and chaos and just draw with feeling. I intentionally did not clarify how exactly they should draw the dancing, and as a result we had everything from solo figure poses to step-by-step diagrams to movement captures. I was so excited to see how many directions they took it in.

The following week, we started learning about value and shading to add on to our figure drawing lessons. In our final exercises, students will work on a formal figure drawing of a freeze frame from a music video / dance / song of their choosing.

International School Of Louisiana West Bank  1st-5th Grade, Drama/Theatre & Social Studies Zeb Hollins III

Notes from the field 3 of 3: Implementing virtual arts integration lessons during a public health crisis requires students, teachers, administrators, and artists to utilize effective communication skills. Effective communication happens when the ‘receiver gets the message the sender intends’. These communication skills include active listening, clarifying, and summarizing. Because of the pandemic most communication between artists, teachers, administrators, and students happens via telephone or online.

Hynes Charter School, Lakefront 7th Grade Social Studies + Slam Poetry Sean Glazebrook / Alexandra Mossing / Christina Ramirez

7th grade students in Ms Mossing and Ms Ramirez’s 7th grade classes created poems for an in-class (and online!) poetry slam. We began with an exploration of the history of slam poetry and viewed a few examples of performances. After that, we first created our own poems about our beliefs and ideas for how to make the world a better place. We ended class by creating poems/performances in the character and from the perspective of James Madison and the choices he made in dealing with the War of 1812.

One student created a skeleton puppet for his performance and presented the following poem at our slam:

Surprise! I may look like bones and sticks

But I’ve been dead since 1836

My name is James sometimes called Jimmy Madison

I may be short but I make a great statesman

I helped write the Constitution and the Bill of Rights

Those are just a few of my many highlights

As Secretary of State we made a purchase from France

Doubled the size of America’s pants!

England and France were fighting a war that was brutal

I suggested America should embargo and try to stay neutral

My pal Jefferson left office and ended the embargo

The Brits, angry at the betrayal, still took our cargo

They even stole our potatoes, which taste great with gravy

Even worse they stole our people – to add to their navy!

The Brits supported the Natives who were here before

Those locals slew women and children with particular gore

England kept pushing my buttons with their hostile acts

I only wanted peace but they forced me to react

I issued a war proclamation but America wasn’t ready to fight

Congress kept my funding and armies small – a bit like my height

Commerce problems arose as the war raged on

Merchants couldn’t trade goods – even with a coupon!

Troops from Britain filled the White House with smoke

Forcing me to leave Washington or else I might choke

We all got tired of fighting so you know how that went

We ended the war with the Treaty of Ghent

The Battle of New Orleans was fought a bit late

But it showed the world that we could fight great

The Forgotten War should never have happened

Nothing really changed and many were saddened

I eventually died in 1836 in Montepelier

At the age of 85 from heart failure.