Arts Integration:
As a music educator, I am always looking for opportunities to integrate art forms. Combing all art forms including; visual arts, dance, drama and music, makes learning meaningful for learners of all kinds. My experience as an arts teacher spans back at least a decade in many forms including teaching workshops in the areas of; paper maché, sculpture, painting, woodwork, printmaking, paper making, palmer clay beads, masks, dance, tie dye, murals, instrument making, playwriting, puppet making, songwriting, improvisation and folk music.
As a Youth and Child Program Coordinator at the Mt. Lorne Community Center. I provided free musical, artistic and athletic opportunities for children of all ages. I always strove to integrate activities and events with the arts. For an example: I facilitated workshops where the children painted a backdrop, sewed costumes, built stilts, made instruments and choreographed a dance for the final performance. To further involve the community I hired local youth, artists, musicians and elders. For the children, these artistic activities became a means of expression. For parents and community, the performances and events became a source of pride.
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In this class, to the left, we compared and contrasted the sounds of many musical works, and discussed composers, time periods and musical styles. Then, we experimented with the elements of art including colour, texture, shape and contrast. The final product was to create a comic strip with waxed crayons and watercolour techniques to visually represent a series of contrasting songs. Student artwork was displayed at the Suzuki Institute's final performance. |
Feel free to contact me about the various artistic activities, events and workshops that I offer. Also see my coursework as a participant in the 2015 Juneau Basic Arts Institute on my ED S693: Arts Literacy page. The institute served as professional development in the area of arts integration with a focus on cultural integration and classroom inclusion. For my experiences and reflection see this blog post.