Jill's Blog

 This week I learned about how creative drama can be incorporated into classrooms. As a person who has a little bit of experience with theatre, I found this week's classes both fun and knowledgable. We learned how to incorporate creative drama into reading by incorporating statues, hot-seating, artifacts, teacher in role, narrative pantomime and person in a mess. These techniques can be used when reading stories as ways to keep students engaged in the story with movement, and looking deeper into the story and its meaning. These techniques also allow for the students and teacher to be creative and almost put themselves into the story. I really like the idea of using drama techniques as a teaching tool because I believe, as mentioned, it can keep students stay engaged as well as allowing them to be creative and dig deeper into the story. There is a big difference from just reading a book to children and not really asking questions and or analyzing the book throughout to actually divi...

 Before the last few classes, I was not familiar with the Al programs nor did I know how useful they can be if you learn how to use them correctly and in a smart way. In class, whenever we had to create on our own, before using any Al program, it took me a minute or two to think of how to put my thoughts together or honestly just coming up with thoughts on what to write about. I eventually came up with an idea, and I think, was able to write a decent story within the time frame given. I definitely had to use my critical thinking skills and think outside the box. I had to think harder than when I used the Al programs. I used Chat GPT to help create my storybook story. To me, it is amazing how quickly it can generate a story based off of a sentence of key words that you want in the story. I have learned how helpful this tool can be if you make your question somewhat detailed. Whenever, it generated a story, it was honestly pretty similar to what I had previously done on my own and it...

 

Incorporating art into classrooms especially in the early years is so important. It allows for students to be creative, hands on, and express themselves. To incorporate art and artists into my future classroom, I will allow students to draw based off of stories they have read and maybe test their comprehension by letting them draw what happened in the story. Another way art can be incorporated is letting students draw pictures to show that they understand what vocabulary words mean. You can also let them draw with given instructions with room for them to be creative while also thinking critically.  For my parody artwork I choose the American Gothic painting by Grant wood. I had seen this painting many times before and for some reason out of all the paintings I looked at this one gave me the most ideas of how I could make a parody out of it. I decided to instead of drawing people, to draw penguins and give it more of a winter atmosphere instead of maybe a summer or fall atmosphere...

For me, this week was extremely stressful so it was nice to have a class that was more relaxed. I enjoyed on Tuesday being able to make food art. At first, it seemed a little silly to me that we were supposed to make some piece of artwork out of food, but after participating in it, I understand how this can be helpful in the classroom. Incorporating this into the curriculum can help students cognitively as it allows them to be creative and figure out how to make something out of a few items. It can help them emotionally as they can create something that has a meaning to them or simply something that helps them express themselves. Lastly, it can help them physically as it allows them to work with their hands in a hands-on activity. This activity could be incorporated into different subjects as you can make fruit become different shapes, represent different objects, or even make numbers or letters out of fruit. I made a house with my fruit and honestly to me it didn’t have much meaning. ...

I really enjoyed both classes this week. I enjoyed being able to experience a different environment as well as being able to get up and move. It was very cool that we were able to experience the importance of movement as well as understand how movements can be incorporated into learning. I liked how we started each class by doing a couple dances that we all knew to get our bodies moving. I believe this is not only a fun thing to do with students, but it can also serve as a brain break. Personally, going to class and being able to dance relaxes me and oftentimes clears my mind from all the stress that school endures. Brain breaks are a good thing for students as it allows time for students to relax and gives them a couple minutes to have fun and not have to think too much. Many of the songs we listened to in class could serve as brain breaks. I also enjoyed being able to experience a little bit of choreography this week. I have been a dancer pretty much my whole life and I want to be ab...