I can do anything...

So, while I watched the Grey Cup Halftime show I was thinking about how the arts are integrated into sports.  Hedley had the CFL cheerleaders as their back up dancers (and front up dancers on the field) and I was impressed with the musical performance and the dancing.  I was also impressed with the costumes for the dancers.  They were wearing parkas and toques and looked warm, which is not how I typically think of cheerleaders.

I think it's important to integrate art into everything we do and to point out the fine art connections to things that don't always seem to have fine arts connections.  

Even the way the fans dress show creativity and dramatic elements.  

Letting kids experiment with art

One of the most important things I learned about art during my practicum was to let kids experiment with art (and really with everything).  Because I was in Grade One, we had quite a bit of centre time every week and while some students went to the lego every time, lots went to the art centre and made things with paper and markers, tape, glue, yarn, pipe cleaners and anything else they could find. When we used paper plates with our counters in math (during a carpet math lesson) the first thing they wanted to do after the lesson was make something out if their paper plates.  And when the kleenex box was empty a few wanted to make something out of that and they worked together to turn it into a dog (with popsicle stick legs).  I think learning through play is important and experimentation should augment formal art lessons so that kids do not lose the imaginative creativity they are born with.

Patchwork Pattern Maker

I found this great site (through pinterest) that turns any picture into a pattern for a quilt, but I think it would also be a great place to make patterns for anything from a large scale mural project - where the mural is broken down into manageable chunks for everyone to work on, to mosaicking a drawing or showing how a real picture can become more impressionist.  I really think this has uses for every level of art education.

A really interesting project for Christmas

I really like this Reindeer project because it gives kids practice with different mediums and strategies for creating different shapes using their own hands.

A lot of times kids know what a shape is (like an oval or a square) but they don't know how to draw that shape or where to start with it, but this project gives them strategies to make those shapes, and it ends with a cute reindeer portrait, which is a great bonus.

Art Show - Debrief

I really enjoyed the art show and the community we created by putting on the art show.  I found that working together with my fellow education students was a valuable experience and I really liked how excited my grade one students were about coming to the art show and how many family members came with my students.

I also thought the different art styles and forms were fascinating.  The abilities of our students were really showcased and I was really impressed with everyone's  projects.

I think it's valuable to put on something like this, although I wish the planning had happened in a different way with more thought about different areas and a more careful timeline of preparation. I'm sure that these types of events are frequently planned in this way, especially for first time events,  but as the years progress different jobs become the purview of specific people, or classes at schools, and things run more smoothly.

Knowing the steps for planning an art show is valuable and I think an art show would be a nice addition to a regular open house or could be put on either in conjunction with or instead of typical winter holiday plays or pageants.

That Artist Woman...

The best art blog for teachers is one that my CT told me about and That Artist Woman is amazing.  Her posts are great step by step projects and you can easily adapt them to fit the different PLOs.

http://www.thatartistwoman.org/

The different projects are grouped by season or theme and easy to search.

This is going to be my go to for art projects in the future.

My students did a project based on this one and I'm bringing a selection to the art show. 

Lip Sync Off!

I was watching Jimmy Fallon because a) I am up to late and b) it's awesome and he had a lip sync off with Joseph Gordon Levitt and Stephen Merchant (who is a giant).

It was hilarious.

And it got me thinking about kids (and adults) who are afraid to sing.  The lip sync off (much like a good old fashioned Air Band contest, Brandon knows what I'm talking about) is a great place for the dramatic kids who may be tentative about their singing talent.  It would take some confident kids, but it looks like so much fun and it could meet dance, drama and music PLOs.  I also feel that it should be included in our Christmas play.  I'm just saying.

I will dance...

When I lived in Saskatoon, I went to "The Big Fat Ass Dance Class" (Big Fat Ass not required, but it helps) for about 3 years.  It was an amazing place (with no mirrors) and I loved every minute of it because I could just move to music in a variety of ways.  I didn't feel self conscious because everyone there was in the same boat and as nice as it is to dance alone at home (we all do it), dancing with others is amazing (although I was always uncomfortable having to dance touching people, I don't like that).

When I saw this trailer for a new documentary about a dance troupe, some of what they said really resonated with me.

I am not a good dancer, like these teens but it doesn't matter because quality is not really what dance has to be about.  Joy in movement can come in many forms.

Planning a School Wide Art Event - Preliminary Planning

I spent 5 years planning literary events for two different bookstores (McNally Robinson in Saskatoon and Books and Co here) and I rarely had to confer with anyone other than the author, or sometimes an author representative from publishing house, which made planning easy.  But planning events by committee is far more complicated because everyone has an opinion and wants their ideas to be heard and valued.

Based on our discussions in and out of class, planning a school wide event can become very complicated, but the process of planning is a valuable exercise if only because ideas that may not be apparent to the original person who proposes the event are brought forward.

For example, deciding on how the event will be shaped (how many pieces of art per class, where it will be held and when) can be fraught with complications if one party is inflexible and feels their ideas should be given more importance or if someone on the committee is unwilling to change simply because that is the way it has always been done.  However, as with anything done by committee, if things are run on a consensus model, where everyone has a chance to put forward ideas, things run more smoothly.

Versus

Dancing for Change

I came across this on Facebook and I thought I should share, especially after our discussion about cultural contexts in class today.

This is such an interesting form of protest and gives us another avenue of discussion about why art is used instead of something else (like a picket line or the more traditional petition at the beginning).  Here dance is used to protest working conditions and the response from the Walmart customers (and take a look at the smiles on the workers' faces towards the end) is very positive although the manager did call the police. It's pretty serious if you get arrested for dancing.

Keep Calm and Do Drama

I was thinking about drama mostly because I love the BBC radio plays and dramas that are broadcast in Britain (and here via the web) and how voice is so important to drama.  Which reminded me of the presentation Sandra Huggett (who also happens to be my AFL mentor) did for our class last year where she talked about oral language and how to encourage kids to use oral language.

Oral language instruction (which sounds way more formal than it is) covers PLOs in Drama (for example Grade One B1: It is expected that students will use voice to explore a range of ideas and feelings) and Language Arts (all of the A PLOs are about Oral Language).  If we think of this in terms of choral reading, ("now we are going to read this like a tiny mouse, how would that sound?" or "now we are going to read this as if we are very, very tired, how would that sound?") we've got something great and easy to do.  I love the idea of playing with language and I really like incorporating drama into my Language Arts.

I don't know if it's art, but I know what I like...

So, I was reading the IRPs for Fine Arts (because hey, it's the weekend, what else is there to do) and thinking about how in the Presenting and Performing (Music, Drama, Dance) and Exhibition and Response (Visual Arts) sections we, as teachers, are supposed to be able to teach our students how to evaluate art and apply critical thinkings skills to why they like a piece of art or music or drama (whether it is their own work or the work of their peers or the work of professionals) and I wondered how many of us feel comfortable actually judging the arts.

I, for one, do not have a brilliant background in terms of my knowledge of what makes a good dance (well, I do watch a lot of "So You Think You Can Dance" and "Dancing with the Stars, but I don't think that makes me an expert) and while I enjoy music and love to sing, I am not up on the recent trends and have no idea what a good rap looks like (it's all noise, you kids get off my lawn).  But, I think we're going to have to figure that out, especially when it comes to things our students value which means I might have to get to know some rap (at least I like Common as an actor and a visitor to the Daily Show, that's a start, right?) and I'll probably have to look for the redeeming features in One Direction (or as a dad at my bookstore recently called them One Dimension) so that I can connect to my students and maybe teach them about things that are better than the current boy band of the week, not just because I think those artists and musicians are better but because when compared by objective criteria they just are.

And because I really think everybody should listen to him, here's a little Stan Rogers.

And because I love her, Sandy Denny

Canadiana: The Art of Emily Carr

I was thinking about how we are supposed to, according to PLO C2 ("It is expected that students will identify distinctive styles of visual images from various historical, cultural, and social contexts") for the intermediate grades at least, introduce our students to the art of different time periods and also how Canadian artists don't always leap to mind when it comes to that which got me thinking of the most famous, at least until Alex's sister is more well known, British Columbia artist, Emily Carr.

Not only is Emily Carr an important artist simply because she was a magnificent painter, but she also documented BC Coastal First Nations culture.  Her paintings of totem poles are breath taking and evocative and I think her art would be a very interesting introduction to units on BC history, geography and culture.  

It's almost Opera Season!

Hey Cohort, 

I have a shocking secret for you....

wait for it

I love opera.  

I didn't know that I loved opera until about 5 years ago when I bought a friend of mine tickets to see the Met Live in HD performance of Puccini's Manon Lescaut and went with her to see that opera at the theatre in Saskatoon.  I've learned since then that I love Italian and French opera most of all, but I try to go to as many operas as possible. 

When I went to New York in May of 2008, I went to the Met (the backstage tour was the best $15 I spent on that entire trip) and saw Mozart's La Clemenza de Tito from the nosebleedyest of all nosebleed seats and it was still magnificent.  

You're not going to get your grade 5s or 6s to sit through 5 hours of Wagner, but you could probably get them to watch and enjoy this scene from La Fille du Regiment:

For me opera is the perfect blend of music and drama, and I can see it working in a classroom, not every opera mind you or every classroom either, as a way to give context to periods in time.   Many operas tell stories about the time they were written in or about history and I think of them as a way to give cultural context to history, both in general and the history of music and drama in Europe.  It could also be an interesting introduction into a French lesson (as long as it's a French opera). 

For those of you interested, the Met season at the movie theatre here in town starts on Saturday, October 5 with Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin.  

Accidental Participation in Culture Days and Groopfest at the Groop Gallery

So, I was downtown on Friday and I accidentally stumbled onto one of this year's Culture Days activities at the Groop Gallery.  I wandered in after visiting the used bookstore (now on Third around the corner from where it was on George) and had the chance to watch some local artists at work.  It really is amazing to watch a painter, or sculptor create something out of nothing.

It's amazing to watch in person and that could be why The Prince George and District Community Arts Council has the Artists in the Schools Program.  This may shock, but I'm not a confident visual artist and I think having a guest speaker in who can give some art direction and show kids how to create something would be an amazing experience.

I always think about guest speakers or classroom visitors as people who come in to talk about their jobs or share their knowledge and a guest artist fits nicely into that category, even though it was not something I thought about right off the bat.

Sparks Jump Up

So, I lead a Sparks group (tiny pink girl guides, aged 5 and 6) and I realized how much guiding incorporates the arts along with service to the community and basic survival skills.  We spent most of our hour and 15 minutes doing crafts and singing.  We open with a song and close with a song, but we also sing things that have cultural meaning from girl guiders around the world, including Land of the Silver Birch. 

After our class today, when we were talking about songs with cultural meaning and making sure that students think about music, I think something like this, easy to sing and beautiful to sing as a round could be incorporated into a Christmas concert or simply something to include in a Social Studies unit on the Fur Trade or any other part of Canadian history.

Follow your heart

After reading Jana-Rae's post about being art-ish I got to thinking about my sister, Andrea and how she expresses her artish heart with yarn.  She's won a lot of contests (I got to go with her to meet Vana White a couple of years ago because she won a contest) but I'm not sure if she'd say that she was an "artist" and I think that's a shame.  She makes amazing things with yarn, including conceiving and creating the yarn heart below.

Her heart is currently on display in a professor's office at the College of Medicine at UBC (there's a whole story about how Andrea's heart got stolen...but it's not something I can post about here).   I think of her as an artist, but does she?  I'll have to ask.

I think a great open ended art project would be the one that she created the heart for.  The med students were asked to create and submit a representation of a heart, they could use any medium.  The entries varied from a photograph, taken from an airplane of a city with a heart-shaped area of town to detailed drawings and sculpture.  Something like this could be a very interesting science/art connection and students, especially older students who have had more exposure to different art mediums, could really create something amazing.

It's all about the music

For a person who comes from a household where music was not playing very much (when my parents got married they had 5 albums between the 2 of them, including 2 copies of Elton John's Yellow Brick Road) but all of us sing, mostly to ourselves, as we do everything.  Especially my brother and I.

I have vivid memories of little songs I sang to myself as I walked to school and of singing in the bathtub (before I was old enough to take showers).  I hum all the time (so does my brother Ryan, the only time he got in trouble at school was for humming while he worked when he was in grade 1 or 2).

It probably stems from my grandma who sings all the time.  Music just surrounds her, everything she taught us had some kind of music incorporated, from dancing around the kitchen while pies baked to singing while we coloured together.

Grandma was the reason I took 7 years of organ lessons and why I stuck with them so long even after my teacher tried to beat the love of playing by ear out of me.  I have a sister who is an amazing musical technician, she can play anything from a piece of sheet music - our music teacher loved her -, but I have to hear it first and I play by ear even though I can read the music, which infuriated our music teacher.  I was scared of her.  A different kind of musical education might have  helped me become more musically creative and encouraged my natural musical playfulness, I don't know.  But I still love music and play around a bit, when the opportunity exists.

If I ever get the time, or make the time, I'd love to learn how to play the cello.  Someone, I think it was Kim Barlow, once said that the cello is the instrument most similar in range to the human voice and once I thought about it and listened, I  realized she made a very good point.

In terms of musical education, I think it's important to sing with children and to let them sing, but I also think it's important to expose them to different kinds of music, to play music during the day so that they get to know what is out there.  To, in a formal or informal way, introduce them to different instruments, what they sound like and how the sounds change the mood of the music.  Disney's Peter and the Wolf is a good start, but field trips to performances and guests in the classroom or assemblies are very important. 

Music is going to play a large part in my classroom, not matter what the age or the grade level.