Using field trip items to create art and deepening of content (extension to Portage Trail and Riverview Cemetery field trip)

Before we went on the field trip, we were told to bring a bag so we could collect some things found on our the field trip. We were not told what these items were going to be used for. We just knew we needed to collect items that were meaningful to us. I collected acorn shells, sand, twigs, leafs, and an artificial poinsettia leaf. We found out next class, that we were going to use the items we found to make an art piece that represented what we learned or experienced on the trip. We discussed how knowing before hand would have negatively affected our experience, because we would have been too concerned about what to take with us. After making our art piece, we wrote how the our creation represented what we learned or experienced. This is a creative way to integrate art with social studies. Students are learning about history, but they are also using critical thinking and creativity to synthesize what their new knowledge.

My art piece was about the portage trail.  The sand is the trail, ant the acorn shells, poinsettia leaf, and twig represent what I found on the way. The poinsettia leaf would have probably not been there when the trail was used, but it still represents a "thing" encountered on the path. I wonder what sort of things La Salle saw on his way down the trail.

This was from classmate, Jessica Leatherman.

This was from Heather Stutzman.

Geography Garbles

To start talking about how to make geography exciting for our students, we started with a little geography quiz. Then, we were given a page of geographic garbles to solve, which are words or messages that are produced by using a combination of pictures and word play. After we tried to figure them out, we got to make our very own geographic garbles about states, countries, or landforms. It was easier than I thought it would be.

3 in One Field Trip

 On Monday we went to Riverview Cemetery to visit the portage that French explorer, Robert LaSalle, used centuries ago. What I did not expect was to take a tour of the cemetery and learn about the early contributors to the community. It was really powerful to hear of the history behind the people while standing near their grave site. We also collected memorable items we found along the way to use with the Arts. I will post what we did with these items in a later post.

 Heading toward the portage...

Stopped to learn about the crematorium. It takes 90-60 minutes to turn a body into ashes. Anything that is not in ashes is ground up and put in an urn with the ashes. Some urns are buried in the cemetery

Heading towards the entrance of the portage..

 trek, trek, trek...

 The entrance to the portage..

 The guide shared that LaSalle got lost once while he was trying to direct his crew to the portage entrance. He said that he had gotten down and told his crew to follow them on a boat. His crew lost sight of him and La Salle was found the next day. He put X's on the trees next to the entrance so it would be more noticeable from a distance. The trees are gone now, due to flooding in the area and the uprooting of the trees. This Lake used to be part of the St. Joe River. Now, it is Pinhook Lake. The Portage from this entrance to the Kankakee was about a 5 mile walk, but is now as far as Crown Point, due to the draining of the Kankakee marsh.

 View of the entrance from above.

The Cemetery part of the field trip...

                                                                    
 J.B Birdsell invented a machine to make it easier to extract clover seeds.

 Studebaker brothers-Jacob, Peter, Henry, and Clem.
Famous for making carriages and wagons. Two of the brothers went to California to follow the gold rush. They made digging tools and wheelbarrows for those who wanted to dig for gold. Came back just in time to keep the family from going bankrupt.

The Muessel Family was from Germany and they started a brewery. They also donated a lot of money to South Bend Schools. 

Stephenson's made clothing and died wool. 

 These are only some of the many grave sites that we visited. It was interesting to make the connection between the street names, school names, and other facilities in South Bend and those of the prominent people we learned about such as The Morris Performing Arts Center.

Spicing up the Basal with the ARTS

On Wednesday, we presented our ideas for integrating the Arts with the basal readers.

One group did a simulation of the food chain with dinosaurs to go along with the dinosaur unit in their basal. We chose from a stack of note cards with different roles such as, fruit, seed, plant, t-Rex, etc. It was fun watching the "dinosaurs" chase their prey and also see the prey run off and hide. The students would start off by researching their favorite kind of dinosaur and creating a PowerPoint. This would give them the information they need to do the simulation.
**This group integrated the visual arts and theatre.

The theme of my basal was heroes. The week that I focused on featured musical heroes, namely, Gloria Estefan. I decided to include music because the book about Gloria, mentioned a lot of her music. I thought, it would be a great way to bring the story to life. I choose, "Let's Get Loud", "The Rhythm is Gonna Get You", and "The Conga" by the Miami Sound Machine. I had my classmates listen to each song and draw what they felt as they were listening to the music. After listening to the songs and drawing what they felt, they had the option of naming their piece. Other ideas that the basal mentioned where having the students pick a song and introduce it like a disc jockey. I would have my students work in groups and pick one of Gloria's songs to introduce. The last idea was to interview each other. I would have my students come up with 5 questions and take turns interviewing/answering questions.
**I integrated music, theatre, and visual arts in my unit. The basal I used was Reading Indiana Houghton Mifflin.

Another classmate had us write a poem about any emotion we were feeling at the moment. I loved this!
We designed the background for a play based on a book about a book mobile and listened to a hilarious song about a pig to go along with reading frequency in a basal lesson.

Today You Will Create a Masterpiece...

In the first two weeks of our,"Teaching of the Arts," class we talked about our talents, if we thought we  had any, and what it means to be creative. We agreed that being creative does not mean doing something the "right" or "best" way. We also talked about how we could take others ideas and make them our own. Most of us were too shy to admit we had any artistic talent or creativity, but the conversations we had in class, inspired me to step out of my comfort zone and just be free. Just like we were shy at first, so will our students. We need to set the tone as teachers so we can make them believe that they can in fact create a masterpiece! 

In order to help students start creating:

*Provide a variety of materials for them to explore with

*talk with students about how to critique someone else's work

* give them "some think time" (our teacher told us the week before that we would be creating a masterpiece)

MY Masterpiece!