Arts in the Elementary Classroom Conference

Arts Integration Conference

The Rochester City School District, Department of the Arts

presents:

“Arts in the Elementary Classroom”

Saturday, May 1st, 2010

The conference workshops for in-service and pre-service teachers, teaching artists, school and arts administrators will focus on Arts Integration and how the arts support and enhance ELA, Math, Science and / or Social Studies curricula in grades K-6. The conference workshops will be active, hands-on sessions demonstrating techniques and strategies for successful arts integration. Each session will reflect research-based best practices that engage students and enhance student achievement.

This conference is being held at Saint John Fisher College, 3690 East Avenue, Rochester 14618. Saturday, May 1st, 2010. The Early Registration Fee is $20.00 and must be received by March 31st. Registration fee for those received after March 31 is $30.00. Student registration fee $15.00 with photocopy of student ID.  Continental breakfast and lunch will be provided.

The agenda for the day is as follows:

8:00-8:30 registration and continental breakfast
8:30-10:00 Session I
10:15-11:45 Session II
11:45-12:45 Lunch
12:45-2:15 Session III
2:30-4:00 Session IV

To register, please contact Deborah Harloff at the Rochester City School District Arts Department. 

Quotes from previous conference days:

“I think the Saturday conference was great! It gave us a chance to explore many forms of the arts that we don’t always get exposed to. I loved all the workshops I took and will use many techniques in my classroom. Can’t wait till the next one.”

“The best workshop I have done in years!!”

Session descriptions can be found after the cut.

Session Descriptions

Ed Keegan of Rhythm Connect
Session Title: Learning in Rhythm
Art Form: Music/Rhythm &amp
Writing Classroom curriculum area: ELA
Target Grade Level(s): K-3rd (can be adapted for 4th-6th grades)
Session Description: This fully interactive, hands-on session is based on the children’s book that Ed Keegan co-wrote with his 11 year old daughter, Drumming with Dexter: Drumming Through the Jungle. It will demonstrate techniques and strategies of successful arts integration by combining reading, writing, and rhythm, using various hand drum and percussion instruments. Session participants will experience the story from the dual perspective of student and educator. In addition to addressing ELA, the book and the online parent-teacher guide also address Art & Character Development, Social Studies, Science, and Language other than English.

Presenters Pepsy M. Kettavong (sculptor) and Delores Jackson Radney (theater teaching artist)
Title: Let’s Have Tea: Sculpture of Susan B Anthony and Frederick Douglass conversing over a cup of tea
Target Grade Level(s): Grades 4-6
Session Description: Presenters Pepsy M. Kettavong(sculptor) and Delores Jackson Radney (theater teaching artist) created a teacher resource guide for teachers related to the public sculpture of Susan B Anthony and Frederick Douglass entitled Let’s Have Tea. The workshop is designed to teach teachers how to use the Let’s Have Tea Teachers Resource Guide. This workshop will use a public sculpture to teach about:
Susan B Anthony, Frederick Douglass, 19th century American History, 19th century NYS history
Sculpture, Tea , Community, Peace/Conflict Resolution The presenters will show the 25 minute documentary film Let’s Have Tea. The documentary illustrates the making of the public sculpture Lets Have Tea by Pepsy M. Kettavong located in Anthony Square on the southwest side of Rochester. The film depicts the of the community process by which the sculpture was created. We will then review the teacher resource guide and present lessons from the guide in social studies, community and conflict resolution for grades 4-6. At the end of the session teachers will know how to best use the Let’s Have Tea teacher resource guide in the classroom for 4-6th grades . This resource guide should be located in the library of all RCSD schools.

Presenter David Crowe
Session Title: Sound Writing: Composing Musical Scores to Enrich Language
Arts Skills Art Form: music
Classroom curriculum area: Language Arts
Target Grade Level(s): 4-6
Session Description: This workshop helps to address a common problem facing many students – understanding metaphors, similes, symbolism and other devices, and how to interpret them. Music can provide another language - a vocabulary of sound - which can lead students to a richer comprehension of literary concepts.
Through improvisation with simple musical structures, homemade sounds and graphic notation, participants will learn how to create simple soundtracks or underscores, which can be used as tools to enhance students’ understanding and usage of standard literary elements. The workshop addresses curriculum standards in music and language arts.

Presenter: David Crowe
Session Title: Musical Science
Art Form: music
Classroom curriculum area: science/acoustics
Target Grade Level(s): 2-5
Session Description: This hands-on workshop will focus on the connections between science and music, vibration and sound, how sound travels, how we perceive sound, and how those principles are expressed in simple and homemade musical instruments.

Presenter: Elizabeth Hallmark
Session Title: Arts Integration Tools that Make the Work Visible
Art Form: Visual and Performing
Target Grade Level(s): 2-6
Session Description: What does good arts integration look like? What tools can facilitate the practice? This workshop will describe the purposes behind arts integration, show some K-6 exemplars, and share ideas for tools that will deepen the planning and implementation process. Participants will look at ways of capturing student thinking; learn to identify conceptual links between arts and non-arts areas, and brainstorm about reflective summary statements. The workshop gives a broad context for this work as well as specific tools for application across content areas. It is particularly relevant for assessment purposes.
Michelle Brody
Title: Binding it All Together in the Book Arts
Grade Levels: 3rd through 6th grade
Session Description: Participants will learn a handful of simple book binding techniques that integrate the subjects of math, science, social studies, literacy and creative writing into a fun filled series of artistic endeavors that incorporate student research practices while engaging individual creative expression. By the end of this workshop participants will have had hands on experience and handouts to create such books as an Accordion Fold Book, Pamphlet Book, Calendar Book, and Japanese Stab Binding Book.

Kyla F. McHale & Susan Comer
Session Title: Transforming Stories and Curriculum: Engaging students through Theatre and Masks
Art Form: Theatre & Masks
Classroom curriculum area: ELA, Social Studies & Literacy
Target Grade Level(s) 1st – 8th
Session Description: This session will demonstrate how to use theatre; acting, play writing, and mask making, to engage students and inspire
learning in ELA and social studies. We will use a story as a
platform, building off of it to explore curriculum content, finally
transforming it into a play. Then we will perform our play, using
masks and simple props that we have created. These techniques
are particularly effective for ELL students. We will demonstrate how this lesson can be adapted to enhance
any area of your Social Studies or ELA curriculum.

Presenter Name: Sharon M. Peck, PhD.
Session Title: Table Top Puppetry
Target Grade levels: 2-8
Classroom curriculum area: Language arts (could be applicable to Social Studies or other content areas as well).
Grade level focus for the session: 2nd grade and up
Session description: Based on the need for students to be more engaged readers and critical thinkers, the purpose of this session is to present a wide range of possibilities for higher level thinking and increased engagement with texts using dramatization with puppets through the Reading Response Ladder. The Reading Response Ladder demonstrates six levels of reader response which increase students’ critical thinking and engagement through creating table top puppet shows based on children’s books. This presentation explores the Reading Response Ladder and looks at the academic and social outcomes of using the Reading Response Ladder with students. I will begin with a PowerPoint to situate the research guiding this practice, and to share considerations and examples from local classrooms. Then, participants will work collaboratively with a partner to create a table top puppetry performance using a children’s book.
At the end of this session participants will be able to lead their students in exploring higher levels of critical thinking through enacting reading response through table top puppetry.

Presenter Kevin S. Warner
Session Title: Making Movement Meaningful: Exploring Connections between Creative Movement and Language Arts
Art Form: Creative Movement
Classroom Curricular Area: Language Arts
Target Grade Levels: K-6
Session Description: How do the languages of dance and literacy connect, and how will knowing them help me move toward deeper levels of integration? This session focuses on the use of dance (creative movement) as a catalyst for teaching K – 6 state and local standards in language arts. Participants will discover first-hand how facilitating “do-able” movement experiences can help move students toward deeper understanding of tested skills such as Inference, Character Traits, Context Clues and Vocabulary Development. Management tools and resource lists will be shared, and folks will have the opportunity to explore dance integration together in a safe, fun, non-judgmental environment.

Presenter: Kevin S. Warner
Session Title: Forces and Motion: Exploring Connections between Creative Movement and Science
Art Form: Creative Movement
Classroom Curricular Area: Science
Target Grade Levels: K-6
Session Description: What is the role of creative movement in making abstract science concepts more accessible for students? This session focuses on the use of movement as a catalyst for teaching K – 6 state and local standards in science. Teachers will participate in creative experiences that can bring to life science topics including life cycles, force and motion, and habitats. Management tools and resource lists will be shared, and folks will have the opportunity to work together to explore movement in a safe, fun, non-judgmental environment – no experience necessary!

Presenter: Lorna MacDonald Czarnota
Session Title: Discussion and Visualization Technique
Target Grade Level(s): grades 4-6
Classroom curriculum area: Social Studies and Language Arts
Grade level(s) focus for the session: grade 4
Session description: Students who dislike social studies usually have not experienced history. This workshop is one of many programs offered by this presenter to stimulate student interest in history, creativity, and individualized life-long learning which in turn leads to an increase in reading and writing.
Using discussion and a visualization technique developed by the presenter, participants will create a historical persona and do a ten minute timed writing activity. This technique can be used as pre-assessment before a historical unit, during the study or as a post-assessment.

Presenter Name: D’lores Simmons
Session Title: Stories as an Effective Teaching Tool
Target Grade Level(s): K - 6
Classroom curriculum area: all areas
Session description: This hands on workshop is designed to be both informative and fun. It will showcase the use of stories as an effective teaching tool that can be used to enhance any curriculum while creating and fostering a respectful and compassionate classroom atmosphere.

Presenter Name(s): Diane Postoian
Session Title: Do That Again!
Art Form: Theatre/ Storytelling
Classroom curriculum area: Language Arts
Target Grade Level(s): K-6th
Session Description: Experience the ways in which pantomime, storytelling, story dramatization, and improvisation motivate children to have an active interest in books and reading. This workshop rekindles the humor, imagination and pretend skills needed to help children connect the drama and emotion of the spoken word to the written text. Be prepared to laugh as you work.

Presenter’s Name: Karen Pillsworth
Session Title: Storytelling Across the Curriculum
Target Grade Levels: K-6
Classroom curriculum area: This workshop presents stories and techniques that cross curricular areas
Grade levels focus for the session: How to integrate storytelling across the curriculum in all elementary grades
Session description: “Once upon a time”…….you’ve heard theses words before and now it is your turn to amuse, entertain, and educate children through the power of story. In this session participants will become familiar with storytelling techniques, how to choose stories for young children, and methods for learning stories. Working together in groups they will learn how to prepare stories and will be able to tell at least one story before the session ends. The only requirement is the ability to become a child yourself as you laugh and learn through the power of story, knowing the children in your care will live “happily ever after”!

Carol Parenzan Smalley
Session Title: Spinning a Web of Arts Integration Opportunities
Art Form all
Classroom curriculum area all
Target Grade Level(s) K-6
Session Description: Would you like to weave arts into your everyday curriculum? Then this is the seminar for you. Join a published children’s author of creative nonfiction, teaching artist in schools and libraries, college instructor of creative thinking and writing, engineer by degree (who loves math and science), and curriculum developer for the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts as she shares with you a web-spinning technique to capture your students’ interests and add arts to your lessons. This is a hands-on workshop where we will work in several art forms, from dramatic dance and mathematical music to geographic sculpture and creative journaling with world explorers.

Presenter: Mike Kachuba
Session Title: The Music of Math
Art Form: Music
Classroom curriculum area: Math
Target Grade Level(s): K-4
Session Description: Have you ever noticed that many mathematicians are musical thinkers and many musicians are mathematical thinkers? The Music of Math is designed to explore math and music concepts together. One helps to learn the other in fun, informative class sessions. Through use of simple percussion instruments participants will make the connection between math and music by analyzing quantitative relationships, determining equivalencies, understanding varieties of numerical representation to describe quantitative relationships, and use of numbers for counting and understanding quantities.

Presenter Name: Mike Kachuba
Session Title: Songwriting Through The Curriculum
Art Form: Music
Classroom curriculum area: All
Target Grade Level(s): k-8
Session Description: Song writing is great way to summarize any unit from the curriculum. Through the art of lyric writing and music composition, students learn how to analyze and focus in on the key factors of a unit. Song writing re-enforces techniques used in language arts programs, in combination with patterns, sets and other math skills used in the creation of a piece of music. This workshop is designed for people with little or no musical training and presents techniques Mike uses in schools with students and teachers

Presenter: Mike Kachuba
Session Title: The Music of Poetry
Art Form: Music
Classroom curriculum area: Language arts/poetry
Target Grade Level(s): Grade 3 - 5
Session Description: The Music of Poetry: The connections between poetry and music are many. Poems evoke images, possess meter, rhythm, mood, and structure. A music composition does as well. In this workshop program participants will make the connections between poetry and music by interpreting a poem through the creation of sound scapes and music composition. The process of creating a musical piece as a method of interpreting poetry engages the students with the poem and helps them to see the poem as fluid piece rather than merely words on a page.

Presenter’s Name: Cheryl Woodard
Session Title: Music and Literature in the Classroom
Art Form: Music
Classroom curriculum area: ELA, Math , Social Studies
Target Grade Level(s): K-6
Session Description: Together in this session we will explore a variety of children’s books and use music to bring them to life! You will learn how to make books sing to your students.

Presenter’s Name: Cheryl Woodard
Session Title: Music and Math – Fun for All
Art Form: Music
Classroom curriculum area: ELA, Math , Social Studies
Target Grade Level(s): 2-6
Session Description: In this session we will learn fun Raps and Songs help get your students involved in Math! Together we will explore a variety of moving to math songs, multiplication raps and simply piggy back songs to get those math facts stuck in your student’s brains.

Presenter’s Name: Cheryl Woodard
Session Title: Musical Dances from Around the World
Art Form: Music
Classroom curriculum area: ELA, Math , Social Studies
Target Grade Level(s): 3-6
Session Description: Come dance your way around the world in the Social Studies based session. We will travel around the globe experiencing dances from different cultures. Please be prepared to dance and have fun!

Presenter’s Name: Cheryl Woodard
Session Title: Where Did You Find That Song?
Art Form: Music
Classroom curriculum area: ELA, Math, Social Studies
Target Grade Level(s): K-6
Session Description: This session is a computer based session in which the participants will be taken on a guided tour of a variety of internet site that will assist you in integrating music into your classroom.

Presenter: Ellen Carlson
Session Title: Square Roots & Eight Hands Around
Art Form: Music & Dance & Traditional Arts (Quilting)
Classroom curriculum area: Integrated with Math, Social Studies and Language Arts
Target Grade Level(s) Focus: Grades 4, 5, 6 but can be adapted to younger grades
Session Description: Square Roots and Eight-Hands-Round is a long-term, integrated program on folk music, fiddling, square dancing, quilting, social studies and mathematics for first-to-eighth grade. The program is a replacement unit integrating music (fiddling, old time tunes), movement (square dancing), art (quilting), mathematics (geometry and fractions), history, language arts and community involvement. Integrated lesson plans that meet New Hampshire state standards for math, language arts and reading are available. This can be a community-building project with a culminating event being a student-run square dance, quilting party, and sharing time for the students and others involved in the program.

Presenter: Sunder Ashni ( Kimberly Massiah)
Session Title: Creative Movement and Brain Dance
Art Form Dance/Creative Movement
Classroom curriculum area: Science
Target Grade Level(s): Kindergarten
Session Description:
This session will use creative movement and Brain Dance to support young dancers creating a healthy relationship to their bodies and how they move in space and with others. We will also use dance to support the learning of these young dancers inside and outside of the classroom, specifically in their learning of and relationship to Science. Through our physical exploration of the concept of Attraction and Repulsion students will be challenged to demonstrate the effect of these principles on their bodies and surrounding environment.

Presenter Name(s): Carol Yost and Sydney Greaves, Asst. Curators of Education, Memorial Art Gallery
Session Title: Art Alive
Art Form: Visual Art
Classroom Curriculum Area: ELA, Science, Social Studies
Target Grade Level(s) K-6
Session Description: Introduction to 10 different lesson plan kits, available for check-out from the Teacher Resource Center at the Memorial Art Gallery, or downloadable from the MAG website. By utilizing a work of art (transparency or digital projection), teachers will learn to guide students in looking, thinking, connecting, imagining, and expressing ideas, then practice Language Arts skills through a variety of hands-on, student-driven, skill-based activities with links to Science and Social Studies

Presenter Name(s): Deborah Harloff, Executive Director of Visual and Performing Arts, Rochester City School District
Session Title: Visual Art Activities for the Classroom Teacher
Art Form: Visual Art
Classroom Curriculum Area: ELA, Science, Social Studies and Math
Target Grade Levels: K-6
Session Description: This hands-on workshop will help the classroom teacher enhance their curriculum with the infusion of visual art activities. The activities offered will focus on Math, ELA, Social Studies and Science. This workshop is designed for the classroom teacher.

Presenter Name(s): Dale Davis, Executive Director, Association of Teaching Artists; Deborah Harloff, Executive Director of Visual and Performing Arts, Rochester City School District; and Jennifer Watson, Director of Development & Grant Programs, Arts and Cultural Council for Greater Rochester.
Session Title: Enhancing Classroom Curricula Through the Arts – What Every Teaching Artist Should Know
Session Description: The panel will present information on the New York State Learning Standards, how the standards can inform your work as an artist who teaches and how they can help you develop workshops and residencies that are aligned with classroom curriculum. Opportunities for artists to participate in professional development presented by the Arts and Cultural Council for Greater Rochester will be presented as well as funding opportunities. A question and Answer segment will follow the presentation.

Presenter Name(s): Karin Wieder, Ward Hartenstein, M.J. Iuppa
Session Title: Details! Details! Details!
Art Form: Music, Creative Writing
Classroom curriculum area: ELA
Target Grade Level(s): Grades 2-6
Maximum number of participants per session: 25
Session Description: Why are details important? How can we help students discern and interpret details? How can the arts help us to encourage students to use meaningful details? Presenters will share teaching strategies from the V.I.T.A.L. Program (Visual Integration of Technology, Arts, and Language) through a sequence of listening, speaking, and writing activities that link the arts with ELA. In this process participants will observe, describe, analyze, and infer details from sound/music to stimulate creative writing.

Presenter: Young Audiences of Rochester
Session Title: Promoting Literacy through the Arts
Art Form: dance, music, visual, theatre
Classroom curriculum area: ELA
Target Grade Level(s): K-6
Session Description: Arts for Learning Literacy Lessons is a national professional development and teaching artist residency program with the goal of training and assisting classroom teachers in providing an authentic arts experience for their students. Through the creative process, the arts (dance, music, visual, theatre) are used to “leverage” students’ literacy learning. The program is organized into sequential units with well-defined content and clear learning outcomes, utilizing elements from John Bransford’s “How People Learn” (published by the National Research Council). Each unit emphasized age-appropriate literature, specific ELA curriculum and standards and brings together concepts and skills via a visual or performing art form. Teaching artists and classroom teachers collaborate to deliver this rigorous, hands-on literacy program.
Participants will get a first-hand look at Arts for Learning Literacy Lesson curriculum and process. They will gain an understanding of how the program works and will participate, hands-on, in one of the 5 unit lessons.

Presenter: Jeff Nicholson
Session Title: Mobiles
Art Form: visual art
Classroom curriculum area: ELA, Social studies, science
Target Grade Level(s): 5-6
Session Description: Participants will learn a simple technique for creating mobiles in the classroom. Each participant will create a mobile in this hands-on workshop.

Presenter: Crayola
Session Title: Visual Art Activities
Art Form: Visual art
Classroom curriculum area: ELA
Target Grade Level(s): K-6
Session Description: A Crayola Representative will present lesson ideas for classroom art activities using Crayola products.

Presenter: Jeremy Burgo
Session Title: Anatomy Book
Art Form: visual art
Classroom curriculum area: Science
Target Grade Level(s): 5-6
Session Description: Participants will learn how to create a see through (acetate) anatomy book with different layers representing the various systems of the human body. Each participant will start their own book as a model for future instructional practice.