Visual arts

It was fun learning about the visual arts. I wasn't excited about this topic because I stink at art. To my surprise I found it to be interesting and doable. There are so many different art forms you don't have to be good at drawing to be a good artist. I am so glad to know this so my students won't feel the same way I have about making art. Learning about the different elements and principles in the pictures was a great learning activity. I want to go to an art museum now and look for the elements and principles because before I only spent a few seconds looking and didn't appreciate it like I will now. I love learning about the artist and their relationship to their art.

The activity we did today was a fun way to learn about the different illustrators. It is amazing how different artists are so unique. Marcus Pfister used water colors and foil stamps for his books. It was interesting learning about the illustrators like Gerald McDermott who uses geometric shapes and Eve Carle who brought out dimension with a collage of paper. Also, Dr. Suess who used the primary colors to sketch. I loved this hands on activity and learning about these author/illustrators. What I thought would be a painful unit ended up being one of my favorites.

Music is the Bomb

Music has been a part of my life since I can remember. I don't remember a lot from elementary school but I do remember the music. Even to this day music brightens my mood. I think integrating music is important because it has a huge effect on students. As I watched the different groups present their music/dance presentation I could remember those topics better because of the music involved. I was so excited when I met my cooperating teacher and he told us we would be teaching about Native Americans. I instantly thought of Ellie's group and how perfectly that presentation would fit in a lesson. I was so excited to see the exact song her group used in a hand out the teacher gave us for reference. It is so cool to see how we can implement what we have learned in the classroom.

I think music in the classroom should be used as much as possible. There will be times when it isn't appropriate, like during a test, but if music lifts my spirit just think about what it does to 30+ children. I will use the classical music when students are doing thinking like math, but during art I think it would be fun to play disney or more upbeat music and if someone wants to start singing while working all the better. Music is also a great way to learn things. For instance the times tables each have a nursery rhyme to help learn them. There is a song for just about everything and if there isn't I could make one up. In my future classroom music will be one of the highlights of our day.