Creative Connections with Eric Carle

Teaching at an arts magnet school is one of the most fulfilling things I have ever been able to do. Not only am I blessed enough to be teaching children (my passion) but I'm able to do it in a school that is aligned with one of my lifetime passions--the arts! Throughout my teaching career, I've always worked to incorporate art into my daily lessons. However, it is here at the Academy for Academics and Arts that I am challenged to push further and deeper into arts integration to connect rigorous core curriculum lessons with arts standards in order to reach every student's creative and unique learning styles, levels, and interests.

This year, I knew I wanted to guide an Eric Carle author study and explore his illustration techniques in literature and art, but I wanted to find a deeper connection to the curriculum. I found just that in our Science Standard 7.) Identify geological features as mountains, valleys, plains, deserts, lakes, rivers, and oceans. Eric Carle's stories and illustrations are full of plants and animals so this would be the perfect fit to integrate AL Visual Art Standard

1.) Apply a variety of procedures, methods, and subject matter in the production of two-dimensional works of art, including landscapes, still lifes, and relief prints.

Thanks to our amazing media specialist, Brenda Levert, we were able to read the stories and study the illustrations in each of the Eric Carle books in our school library. We also simultaneously studied geological features of the earth and I introduced landscapes through google and bing. After a few days of learning, we were able to begin sketching and labeling our landform landscapes.

Students begin sketching their landform landscapes.

Once our drawings were completed and accurately labeled, we watched a slideshow on the Eric Carle illustration process and a slideshow on his tissue paper painting technique. Students then made a plan and began their work. I started the process by instructing small groups of students at my table. After I taught a few groups, they were able to help other groups get started.

Students carefully trace, cut, and glue tissue paper.

Students were guided by their original drawings to trace shapes using colored tissue paper. They glued these onto a clean piece of cardstock to create their landscape designs. After the glue dried, students then used watercolors to paint over the tissue paper and add to the landscape. Look at these amazing finished products!

 This arts integration lesson lasted about 10 days and allowed students to use learned knowledge to creatively problem solve, plan, and execute unique works of art integrating science, visual art, fine motor skills, and more! This is why I love the arts--students gain so much from the process and in turn have so much pride in the product!

 We also had an exciting December Winter Celebration complete with pajamas and tacky sweaters! Students had Christmas and winter themed stations before the afternoon party. Students designed cards, scratch-art reindeer, and mini-masterpiece ornaments.

 We've also gotten really involved in our Math practices. I'm so proud of how hard the students are working to take ownership of their own learning. They make sense of problems, teach lessons, choose correct tools/manipulatives, and attend to precision daily!

November to Remember

Now that the school year has gotten well underway, students and teachers are buckling down preparing for unique ways to meet learning targets and benchmarks, as well as getting ready for two of the biggest celebrations of the year--Thanksgiving and Winter break, of course! Along with autumn winds come festive seasonal lessons and projects. 2nd grade students designed and created a very unique scarecrow and story to match. Students were to create a scarecrow from a given or self-made template and write a story with a problem and a solution. I was so impressed with all of the unique plots and story lines! Check them out:

Of course, you can't have a scarecrow without a few crows flying around. Using the Kennedy Center's ArtsEdge teacher resources, I found an arts integrated lesson that incorporated drama, visual art, math, science, and reading. First, my students read Aesop's fable, "The Crow and the Pitcher" from the Pearson Reading Street class anthology. We then watched a YouTube version of the same story. Students used a graphic organizer to compare and contrast the two versions. Throughout the week, students designed and created crow sock puppets following the instructions in the lesson plan found here.

On Friday the lesson came together in an engaging multi-disciplinary center time.  
Center 1: Readers' Theater (Drama/Comprehension/Retell)-Students used their own puppets to act out and retell the story.

Center 2: Partner Reading (Foundations/Details/Story Structure)-Students read the story and discussed important details. Students also analyzed the overall story structure using a graphic organizer.

Center 3: Estimation (Math/Science)-Students worked together to predict and estimate how many pebbles would be needed to allow the water to rise to the designated line. Students then tested their hypotheses and recorded the data from their results.

My students were entirely engaged and thoroughly enjoyed each aspect of this week long lesson! They couldn't wait to take their crows home and share what they had learned.

Coming Soon: Eric Carle Author/Illustrator Study Inspired Social Studies Lessons

Arts in Autumn and Hands-On Math

Mrs. Scrivner's Stars have been rocking since August! We have been working hard and learning lots through home projects, hands-on learning, and arts integrated lessons. As October came to an end, we celebrated Red Ribbon Week with fun dress-up days.

Wacky Hair Day

Crazy Socks Day

October 31st Superhero and Mustache Day

We also had a home project this month. Students created a timeline of their lives to coincide with the Reading Street story Abraham Lincoln by Delores Malone. Students were given the assignment and then assessed according to a teacher-created rubric. Snag the rubric for FREE from my Teachers Pay Teachers shop. We also began comparing and contrasting holidays and traditions in the United States with holidays and traditions in other countries. We learned about Dia de los Muertos through Jasmine Orellano's wonderful powerpoint. Next, we compared/contrasted using Open Wide the World's freebie here on TPT. This lesson was enriched through visual arts as the students planned out their own calaveras skull masks and designed them using glitter, feathers, beads, flowers, markers, and more!

During this semester, our school began a partnership with artists at the Huntsville Ballet Company . From October to November, AAA 2nd grade was fortunate enough to have dance instructor Susan Kelly collaborate, model, and teach an ELA lesson through movement and dance once a week. The students and I have learned so much through this partnership. Here are a few sights from the lessons. 

     

Finding Beat and Rhythm while Mirroring Partners

Creating Story Plot Vignettes Together

We've also been learning how to play our violins in Strings class with Ms. Peck.

Lastly, here are a few pics from some of our hands-on cooperative learning math lessons, a reader's theater with song, and candid shots from the classroom. 

Thanks for visiting our class blog! Check often for updates and freebies. Coming soon: Kennedy Center Arts Edge lessons in action and winter activities!

 

Writing, Centers, and Our First Project!

It's been a fantastic August; I can hardly believe we've been in school a whole month already! The transition to second grade and a new school building has been an adventure but I think we're all finally settled. Here are a few of our fantastic ELA centers in action:

We got our classroom iPads and learned how to take care of them while exploring our new apps! 

We also started visual art class with the amazing Ms. Bradford!

We read our first nonfiction unit story of the year, "Exploring Space," learned about main idea and details, and tried our hands at expository informative writing. These kids amaze me everyday!

For this story we also incorporated some visual art experiences by creating sentences and murals to define our amazing words for the week. Each group of students had two words to incorporate into a sentence and picture. Here are some of the collaborating groups in action: 

We also had our first drama/theater class. The director, Ms. Fleischman, focused on projection and expression while reinforcing the importance of listening to directions through Shel Silverstein poems. Can't you just see the emotion expressed with each child's face and body language? 

Our first class project was a "Me Project" in which the students designed a mini-me and presented it to the class. Students were to focus on what made them unique. The listening audience was to compare and contrast what similar interests they shared with the presenting students.

Download project instructions HERE. 

We've had a blast so far and can't wait to share more of our learning!

 

School is in Session!

We've had a great first two weeks of school! We started in a classroom that wasn't quite unpacked from the move to our new building, but you wouldn't know it by the looks on the students' faces.

They are so excited to be in our fresh, newly renovated school! On the first day we learned procedures for being the best learners possible through Whole Brain Teaching rules and gestures. The kids love learning with actions. We also learned our class responsibilities and were assigned jobs to help our community of learners.

Our new elementary music teacher, Ms. Staples, came into our classroom to read and sing rhythm stories. 

The students learned their numbers and practiced lunch time procedures.

The first Friday of school our new playground opened up. 

We practiced math, had an introductory lesson in our interactive math journals, and used our reading books to learn about theme and compare/contrast two poems.

I can't wait to share more second grade adventures in our new school.