With the new school year in full swing, I’ve been thinking about some tried and true elementary art integration ideas that are great for student learning and pretty easy to do. Here are some lessons that I co-taught with a classroom teacher during a HOT Block elementary art integration period. These are once a week sessions when a class comes to the elementary art room with their classroom teacher to learn reading, writing or math through art.
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Kindergarteners love art, tech and writing
Kindergarten students love to draw, are motivated by the use of tech and love to write about their experiences. We are fortunate to have iPad carts for student to use, and they love it! The students drew in Doodle Buddy, I reflected the iPad with Reflector App and students were excited to write about the experience!
2. Fourth grade book character sculptures
These students, in addition to writing some information for a book report, created a book character sculpture out of low fire clay. After it was fired, the students added all the details for their main character with different materials, being sure to add all the important items the character needed in the story. If clay is not available, students can create a drawing or collage of the character instead.
3. First Grade Charlotte’s Web Character “Studies”
After listening to Charlotte’s Web in class, first grade students discussed all of the character’s details and had a mini elementary art lesson on drawing each of them. I used basic shapes to show students how to draw a person, pig, rat or spider. These drawings accompanied their writing about their favorite character.
4. Third grade math/art stop motion videos
Student groups wrote math story problems, created all of the pieces needed and animated them using stop motion. We used iPads with the iMotion app. See all the videos here.
5. Second grade illustrations
After writing a nonfiction piece in their classroom, second grade students created a precise illustration to go into their work. They used accurate labels so that readers could understand all the important details.
Your turn: what are some of your most successful lessons?
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