Field Experience

I am now finished with my field work and had much fun in the classroom. With my lesson plans that I was able to teach, I integrated art into two language arts lessons. With the Thanksgiving holiday around the corner, I was able to use this as my focus with my first lesson. My lesson was about writing and word choice within writing. Teaching the students how important adjectives were to writing and the excitement and interest that they can bring to a sentence. As a class we made a Thanksgiving turkey that the students decorated with personalized feathers expressing their favorite Thanksgiving dish. There was much enthusiasm in doing this lesson, the students had a lot of fun and they were all very proud of their finished turkey. After the class completed the turkey with their feathers, I had them sculpt their favorite meal on a paper plate with salt dough. This part of the assignment was also very much enjoyed. The second lesson I taught was also focusing on word choice. As a class the students came up with sentences to go along with a picture book that had the text covered. I then had the students illustrate their own story using the text that they had come up with for the picture book. This was also a fun project for the students creating much enthusiasm. In the end, actually teaching students with art was not only fun for them but also a very fun for me to instruct.

Visual Arts

After completing our class on visual arts and actually doing artwork that embraces the art from children's books, I have learned that there are amazing children's illustrators with many different styles of art. Using children's books for teaching visual art within the class is an excellent way to expose art to the class at a level that can reach even the youngest of audiences. As you read a book to a class much emphasis can be placed on the art with the children and as the book is being read, stopping and talking about the art will even bring more attention to the students. Having the opportunity to actually make visual art pieces that focused on particular illustrators was very fun to experience and opened my eyes to many possibilities that may be used in the classroom to introduce students to different styles of artwork. As I go through this program and work towards my degree, I will definitely utilize my findings in my art integration class and focus more on the arts when I am in the classroom as a professional instructor.