Discussion Assignment 5 Arts Integration

While reading about making connections across the curriculum it made a lot of sense to me because I try to do this in my classroom. I feel like you need to inform students that words can have a variety of meanings according to what subject you are discussing. I thought the example elements worked really well because myself along with the music and art teacher use this word. This gave me a reminder to continue to give multiple definitions of a word.

Visual Thinking Strategies is a term I have not heard much. This sounds like it would be very useful especially to integrate into the classroom. Elementary aged children can benefit from visual strategies. One thing that appealed to me is how it is useful in many subject areas.

The introduction to VTS video reminded me of how we begin our focus books each week. In my classroom we have a discussion about the front cover, which is often an illustration. I liked listening to the students discuss with one another about the art and how they perceived it. One of the speakers in the video made a good point how things like observation is done in many other areas besides just art. I can relate because this is a word used a lot in science when we complete an experiment. I noticed in this video how well conversation must have been taught. The students stayed on topic and really voiced their opinions.

The Arts Integration video was explained well and in a format any educator could understand. I found it useful when she gave the examples of the difference between arts enhancement and arts integration. I feel in my classroom I use more enhancement especially by using songs for students to remember things. I student taught in kindergarten and we used a lot of singing and movement especially while teaching students the alphabet. It would be nice to have planning time with specialist like the art and music teachers to have the integration in the classroom. I feel lucky to work in a district that provides art and music for our students but it doesn’t provide any time for teachers to collaborate for true integration.  

I feel the same way about time to collaborate with related Arts teachers.  My school does not have this planning time in our schedule but after reading about Arts integration I will certainly propose some time for this.