Arts and Movement- The Integration

Scenario #1 

Dear Parent, 

Thank you for presenting your concern about the integration of arts, movement and music in our classroom to me. I would like to assure you that all of my students intellectual prosperity is important to me. In fact, that's why I chose to integrate arts, movement and music into our lessons. I feel as though sitting still and quit for hours on end, for anyone, let alone third graders is a daunting task. I have to ask myself does sitting in anyway help our students learn? Do we need to tame or students' physical natures? I have found that incorporating arts, movement and music into the learning process creates more opportunities for hands on learning and is overall more engaging for the students. We all learn through our senses, drawing information in through our bodies to feed our understanding of the world. Essentially the mind and body work as one to process information. 

Studies have shown that that the arts are an integral part of whole brain learning and students involved in the arts, score an average of 100 points higher on the SAT's than students who do not have access to arts education. (Arts Integration Resources, 2015) Behavior issues were also reduced when arts, movement and music integration were implemented into the classroom. Also, students in arts integration classrooms tested from 7 to 15% higher in all tested subjects regardless of demographic group of students tested. (Research, 2014) 

I find multiple reasons to integrate arts, movement and music into our curriculum. I hope you will join us in our classroom in order to observe how engaged the students are in their learning through this type of integration during our lessons. 

Thank you, 

Alana Winstead



Arts Integration Resources. (2015). Retrieved May 29, 2015, from http://www.paps.net/domain/2744


Research. (2014). Retrieved May 29, 2015, from http://artsintegration.com/research/

Teaching Channel Art Videos

After watching the 4-5 videos, I noticed that arts can be incorporated in many different types of lessons. In fact, every subject can incorporate art in some way. It seemed that when the teachers incorporated art into their lessons the students seemed engaged and excited to learn. I think for most of the kids, art is fun and enjoyable, so why not incorporate it into our lessons more often. All the teachers in the videos I watched also had the students collaborate together and all the lessons were focused on higher level thinking skills. Also I like how the common core standards were noted on the videos for each lesson. 

The first video I watched, was the one I found most interesting. I watched, Interpreting Ancient Art. This lesson seemed like a fun way to incorporate art into a social studies. The kids got to observe and interpret the art themselves in order to discover the history behind the art. The kids were using higher level thinking skills and this lesson was very engaging. At the end of the lesson they would find out what history about the art and compare it to what they thought it was. 

Another video I liked was Evaluating Art Through Different Lenses. I liked this lesson because they were constantly thinking and engaging with their peers. It was a science lesson where they were learning about scientific reasoning through art. The students were able to debate, articulate opinions which focused on art, but used scientific words when discussing and examining the insect and animal pictures. It was interesting to see how art can be incorporated in science. I would recommend this video. 

References:

Interpreting Ancient Art in Social Studies. (n.d.). Retrieved May 23, 2015, from https://www.teachingchannel.org/videos/interpreting-ancient-art-getty


Evaluating Art Through Different Lenses. (n.d.). Retrieved May 23, 2015, from https://www.teachingchannel.org/videos/lenses-and-art-getty