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/