Field Experience #6

Field was a bitter sweet experience for me. The teacher I was with was a great person, very nice and kind to the children, but I didn't like the way she taught. She never used the arts in her lessons or her classroom, and she mostly had the students write notes from her lectures. That is not the kind of teacher I want to be. I want to have the arts in my classroom everyday as well as having the students interact and MOVE. The students in the 5th grade class were hard! They were very diverse and had a lot of disabilities. I have always thought a diverse classroom is ideal, and I still believe that is true, but I know that it is going to be hard. We incortopated the arts in some of the lessons we taught, but the students were not used to that so they were a little reluctant to start. Once they started with our process drama activity, they loved it! I enjoyed this creative arts class because I have always believed that the arts are very important in the classroom and it was great to learn ways to effectively teach them. I am not very talented in the arts, so it was a little uncomfortable to get out of my comfort zone, but it was good for me. I am a lot more reluctant to do things in front of adults, so I know that I will be ok infornt of kids because I did fine in this class. I plan to incorporate the arts as often as I can in my classroom, daily if possible. I will attend conferences, and keep up on the new things going on in the arts for elementary teachers. I will use the lesson plans created in this class, when possible, to help me with my students.

Dance #5

Dance
I was a little nervous about the dance segment of this class. I am not very coordinated, although I always wished I could have been a dancer. I love to watch dance, I just don't feel like I am talented in it. After the first lesson, with the Where the Wild Things Are activity I changed my mind about dance in the classroom. I think it is a very cool thing to incorporate and I want to be able to use it in my classroom. After watching the movie on the last day or class I feel that movement, and all the arts, are VERY important to incorporate in the classroom. It makes me sad that lots of schools and districts and cutting out the arts. That is just a disadvantage to the children. I am still nervous about using a lesson in field, but we are going to do it! Hopefully we can make a dance/movement lesson fit with what we are teaching. I need to be more confident in my capabilities so that my students will feel more confident in what they are asked to do.
I enjoyed the group project, although we did struggle coming up with an idea. Once we got together and came up with the idea, it was easy from there on out.

Music #4

Music is very important to include in the elementary classroom. It has been proven to help the brain focus better and it also helps the memory to listen to music. I learned that writing a song according to curriculum is really tough! I also learned that folk songs are not being taught in schools anymore and they should be. I learned that we have a lot of creative, musical people in our cohort as well as putting curriculum to music can be very helpful for students.

I will use music in my future classroom, even though I am not a singer at all! I have always loved music and thought it was important to have in my life. Teaching music to children helps them with rhythm and patterning as well as focusing the brain.

I plan to learn the folk songs better so I can teach them to my class as well as practicing my singing so I can help my students.

My experience was good with this project. We were all a little scared to go ahead and start writing the song but once we got started it was fun. We did a great job and our song was catchy and cute. I have learned a lot about working in teams. It is hard, but as long as everyone is willing to do their part it always turns out good. More ideas come with more people. I will be more sensitive to my students when I ask them to work in teams and realize that it is not the easiest thing to do. I always struggled with it as a student because I am a little more shy, but I have learned a lot this semester by working in groups.

Reflection #3

What?
I have learned a lot about drama. I have never actually been involved in any sort of drama activities. It was really fun and not as scary as I thought it was going to be. I always thought it was just acting and that was something you had to have a talent for, but I learned that is not true. I feel more now that drama is something that is important to include in a classroom.
So what?
I think I will use more of the small class activities. I liked how we did it with a children book. That is something that is not hard to incorporate into a classroom and into curriculum.
Now what?
I think children need creative drama to be able to get out of themselves and feel what it is like to move and interact with others. I also thinks it helps them see other perspectives, which can be a hard thing for many children. Integrating drama is useful with other subjects because I feel that it brings those subjects to life.

And...
I did activities for about 10 pages in the childrens book. I came up with about 5 activities. I was not able to make it to the presentation, because I was very sick, but I still feel that I contributed a lot to the project. I also helped with picking out the book we used. Our group worked well together. We were able to learn from each other and work with each other.

Reflection # 2- visual art

What?

In the last 2 weeks, we have been talking about visual art. Since I have taken many classes in art, especially the Art for Elementary Teachers a few semesters ago, I didn't feel like I learned a lot. But I did learn and get some ideas for lessons through the activities we did and well as the presentations on the illustrators. I think that is a great idea as a teacher, to introduce the students to illustrators.

So what?

I feel that art is very important to include in the classroom. There are students who have a creative brain and are never able to use their abilities because they are stuck doing science and math. With having art in the classroom, those students are able to shine. As I person, I love studying art and enjoying it as well. I am going to continue doing that, as I think that makes a person more intelligent.

Now what?

I truly believe students learn better and more effectively if they study and engage in different arts. I will use this in my classroom. I will integrate the arts into other subjects and let the students learn that way.

Our group project went well. I put together the hand out and came up with the project, with help and ideas from the other girls. I feel like we all did well and our parts. We had a hard time contacting the girl who is not in our cohort, but she worked it out and did what she needed to.

Post 1

Art
I have had many experiences with art in my life. I have always been more of a creative, right-brained person. I was the child who took my moms camera and took millions of pictures. (and in those days it was film, not digital.) I also made many many art projects as a child/young adult. I was always creating something. I took photo in high school, and another art class. When I got to college I took several Humanities classes as well as the art for elementary teachers class. I loved it! It was so much fun to learn about how children learn about art and also how to teach them. I was also a musical child, talking piano for 8 years. I am no longer very musical, but I did take the music for teachers class last semester. It was a struggle for me, because I am not a singer AT ALL, but I made it and I learned a lot about myself.
I am very excited for this class, to learn more about art and children.