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I integrate art into my lessons across subjects, I find that this fosters engagement in my students and makes learning more accessible.
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Using Visual Arts to Facilitate
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Students were prompted to set a goal for themselves that they hoped to accomplish during their four day environmental education experience at IslandWood. Students were invited to decorate their goals in any way they wanted, using pastel, marker, or colored pencil.
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Several examples of student goal-setting artwork, created by Wilkes Elementary 5th grade students. Students' goals including topics such as making friends, learning about nature, and trying new things.
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This information helped me determine what my group of students felt was most important to learn at IslandWood. I used this information to plan my activities for the week, for example adding additional team building activities.
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Studying the Natural World through ArtThe arts provide an accessible entry point for students to engage with and learn about the ecosystems around them. I often use visual arts and poetry as lenses through which students can investigate flora, fauna, habitats, and much more.
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Bryant Elementary 5th Grade Students' "Nature Prints." I pay attention to what plants my students are particularly drawn to and use the information to inform my lessons later in the week.
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Two Bryant Elementary students show off their nature prints. Both of these students used elements of ferns in their printed images.
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Nature Prints
Students are prompted to select a plant that they want to investigate. After making some preliminary observations, students are provided with resources to determine what their plant is. Finally, students learn to mix paint colors in order to create "Nature Prints" of their selected plant to take home with them. I encourage students to keep their prints, and to teach others what they learned through this activity. This allows students to transfer and communicate their learning to others within a different setting. |
Sword fern print in progress. This week, several students were printed images of ferns, prompting a discussion of the different kinds of ferns at IslandWood. I used this information to create a fern investigation for my students later in the week.
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Observational Poetry
Through my teaching experience, I have found that many students hold a negative connotation when it comes to poetry. I am to make poetry more accessible to my students by providing scaffolding in my lesson. I always aim to facilitate this lesson in an outdoor space that is engaging for my students.
I prompt students to write down five nouns that they observe around them, five verbs that describe things they enjoy doing, and five adjectives to describe the location they are in.
Students then connect these words to create lines in their poem, describing their observations of their surroundings.
Through my teaching experience, I have found that many students hold a negative connotation when it comes to poetry. I am to make poetry more accessible to my students by providing scaffolding in my lesson. I always aim to facilitate this lesson in an outdoor space that is engaging for my students.
I prompt students to write down five nouns that they observe around them, five verbs that describe things they enjoy doing, and five adjectives to describe the location they are in.
Students then connect these words to create lines in their poem, describing their observations of their surroundings.
When I was an elementary student, I found writing poetry to be intimidating. By providing students with the instructions to write down words first, they are provided with somewhere to start if they are unsure, as well as something to go back to if they feel stuck in their writing.
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Example of a student poem. This student made various connections between aspects of the ecosystem and even connected their observations to their own communities. This shows me that the student understood the ways that ecosystems and communities of people are similar. This is highlighted specifically in the last lines: "The ravine is a community. How can you help in yours?"
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Sound mapping
This activity allows students to make auditory observations and record them visually, in a "map" using shapes, words, or images. Students are given a quiet space for about ten minutes to complete their sound maps, followed by a space for students to share their maps and what sounds they heard during their observation. These sound map examples were created on the floating classroom in the pond. |
Student sound map. This student chose to use visual images alongside labels to represent the sounds around them. The way this student represents different animal sounds shows me that they were thinking about the ecosystem of the pond and connecting the sounds they were hearing to what they might have come from.
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Example of a student sound map. This student represented the area in which sounds were coming from by creating a circle around the area they were in. This student also used very descriptive language to explain a sound they heard. The fact that the student wrote that the sound "repeated" and "then stopped" shows me that the student paid attention to one sound over a period of time and noticed changes in it.
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Example of a student sound map. This student used lines to represent the way sounds changed, creating small graphs. This shows me that the student picked out specific sounds and listened to the patterns they created before recording them.
Example of a student sound map. This student used almost entirely visuals to represent their sound map, using many repetitive lines and shapes. This shows me that the student was able to hear the sounds and then represent them visually on their paper, maybe more easily than transferring the sounds into descriptive words.
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