Elec 285

  I was not in class but I was able to make my food craft at home.  I used some twizzlers, pretzels, goldfish, and marshmallows to make an underwater scene.  All of these ingredients were things that I found in my cupboard and could have easily used a variety of foods.  I used a cookie and twizzler to make an octopus with the helpful input of my 9 year old.  These types of activities can help students with creatively thinking to plan out what they want to create with food as well as giving more opportunities to explore along with other lessons.  Children can work on their fine motor skills as well as giving them a chance to relax while creating with different materials than they are used to.  The activity could be incorporated into other lessons about animals with a focus on vocabulary that go along with the animal or even the habitat that they live in.  This activity could also be used to give examples of food groups or colors and shapes.  S...

This week was all about movement and dance being incorporated into lessons.  We learned about the fundamental movement skills: locomotive, non-locomotive and object control movement which categorize if a person is moving somewhere else vs staying stationary or moving around something such as a ball.  We also learned about perceptual motor skills: time, directions, and space which relate to how movements helps students be aware of how fast or slow they are moving or spacial awareness and where their body is when they move.  I forgot to grab a picture for the blog because we were busy doing movements and dances along with the songs most of the class.  We also created movements to go along with the song “My Favorite Things,” from The Sound of Music.  These activities helped me realize that movement in the classroom can be used more in any lesson and not just for the students to use up some energy or for a brain break but to actually develop some understanding and l...

 This week's class was about using music not only for transitions but by incorporating it throughout the classroom and also teaching students to learn about specific aspects and appreciation of the music itself.   It is an easy tool to get students on track and focused as well as to help them remember parts of a story and include participation throughout lessons and storytelling.  We watched a story told with songs and nature elements and then drew our interpretation of the settings and then discussed ways to include music in our ideal classroom.  These activities helped me see how music can be used to teach in different areas outside of the typical ways and songs.  I can put more focus on letting them create their own music and exploring the music and sounds around them.  The repetitive songs throughout the story that allowed the children to participate as well as having them do motions and make sounds to go along with it helped keep their attention....

     The concepts from this week's class was about the courage to create art and show it off as it is without worrying about perfection.  The concept of including art in all other areas of the curriculum was discussed by including rock painting in math, literacy, dramatic play, science, and social studies activities.        In order to paint the rocks we were given a purpose for 3 of them while 2 rocks were open-ended choices but we still had to use our own creativity to decide what to paint.  With some of the rocks, I thought more about how I wanted to paint them before I began painting but with some of the rocks, I began painting and just decided in the moment what would be painted.          This activity can be integrated into a classroom in many ways.  Allowing the children to paint the rocks can help them express their creativity as well as having a rock museum for the children to explain their cre...