Theater Article

Summary of Theater Article

The Impact of Arts Education on Workforce Preparation : http://www.nga.org/Files/pdf/050102ARTSED.pdf

• Arts provide the choice of growing in popularity and esteem.

• Arts provide effective learning opportunities to the student population, by increasing academic performance, reducing absenteeism, and building skills.

• Arts contribute, to at-risk youths, lower recidivism rates, increase of self-esteem, and acquisition of job skills.

• They also help in the development of creative thinking, problem solving, and communication skills.

• Arts-based education provide money saving and time saving options for schools to build skills, increase success, heighten test scores and lower crime rate.

• The basic skills needed in school are oral communication, reading and comprehension, basic arithmetic, and writing.

• The higher thinking skills involve problem solving, learning strategies, creative thinking, and decision thinking.

• Affective skills include responsibility, positive attitude, following instructions, motivation, self-discipline, etc.

• Young people who study the arts heighten academic standing, a strong capacity for self-assessment, and a secure sense of their own ability to plan for the future.

• Children who study the arts are four times more likely to be recognized for achievement

• Children are elected to class office within their schools

• Children are four times more likely to participate in a math or science fair

• Children are more like to achieve perfect attendance

• Children are more likely to win for writing a poem or essay

• Programs in California show higher test scores, increase in academic achievement, and soft skills development.

Model Theatre Program

Model Theatre Program: Buckner Magnet Elementary Teaching the Arts; Performing School

School Site: http://buckner.usd259.org/PerformingArts.html

• Mission Statement: “To insure each child's educational needs will be met through the use of grade level standards and interventions that include integration and exploration of dance, drama, visual arts and music.”
  
• Believe in students’ multiple intelligences and activating and strengthening them
  “Buckner Performing Arts School is a student-centered program that combines traditional academics with performance education.”
  
• Believe in educating the whole child
  
• Looping: 1st and 4th grade teachers continue on with their classes into 2nd and 5th grade. 2nd and 5th teachers go back to 1st and 4th to pick up their next class

Their arguments are that arts:

• Are primary tools of human perception.
  
• Prepare our children to survive in a changing world
  
• Enables children to be problem solvers
  
• Fosters creativity rather than bureaucracy
  
• Uses senses and thoughts to arrive at new concepts and fresh understanding

Their program uses the same adopted textbooks, required tests and district standards as all other schools in their district.

In addition to their dance, visual arts and music, their drama component consists of:

• Weekly meetings
  
• Many opportunities to perceive, imagine, communicate, and respond to sensory stimuli by using their mind, feelings, body and voice
  
• Movement, pantomime, improvisation, character analysis, dramatizations, role play, puppetry, play-making and play writing
  
• Time spent on story elements such as plot, character, setting, theme, conflict, and resolution
• One session a week doing Reader’s Theatre as part of their Reading Enrichment

PE Article

Goal: Fitter kids
District trying out different tactics to get students to be more active, eat healthier
By Chris Moran
Found at: http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20080207/news_1sz7fitkids.html

This article examined the lack of physical education taking place throughout San Diego County and what is being done about it. The article focuses more on health and how to reverse the current obesity numbers found in our schools today. Healthy eating, exercising, and education on both seem to be the suggested preventative measures. Students should be taught how to live healthy lives by learning about the correct foods to eat and nutrition, as well as the required amount of exercise.
The state of California decided that students should be receiving 100 minutes of physical education a week. The article stresses that it is a difficult task to achieve with the pressures and strain already in place with classroom subjects of math and language arts and the shortage of time in the year. By visiting schools in San Ysidro, the author of the article made a few suggestions on how to achieve the desired physical education without having to disrupt class time. Some schools offer intramural sports for students to participate in. They offer medals for the winning teams as an incentive to play and exercise. One school developed Olympic Games for the entire school to participate in during the year. Another suggestion was having after school programs which incorporated more physical education.
The author seemed to focus in on especially one school’s way of getting students active without direct instruction in physical education. At San Ysidro Middle School, the assistant principal plays appropriate music at lunch twice a week. After filtering and editing popular songs, Elena De La Rosa DJ’s for students, encouraging them to get up and dance. The article features a picture to illustrate the success of this program. Students seem to enjoy having an administrator play their favorite music for them during school and without having to pay to attend a school dance or function. The students receive extra physical activity that is fun for them to do in addition to their physical education program.

Shari
Summary of “Top 10 Reasons for Quality Physical Education”
Article by Guy Le Masurier and Charles B. Corbin*


This article was written to provide teachers with information to use in communicating the importance of physical education in school. The authors stress that it needs to be a quality physical education program, based on standards and following appropriate instructional guidelines. They provide ten reasons why children need physical education in school. They are as follows:

1. Regular Physical Activity Helps Prevent Disease
-helps students develop healthy habits that will last their entire life
-gives students the skills and knowledge they need to remain physically active
-students develop positive attitudes toward physical activity which continue
throughout their lives

2. Regular Physical Activity Promotes Lifetime Wellness
-children who are physically active have better self-esteem
-there is a positive relationship between physical activity and self-concept

3. Quality Physical Education Can Help Fight Obesity

4. Quality Physical Education Can Help Promote Lifelong Physical Fitness
-children with low activity levels are more likely to have low activity levels as
adults
-physical education classes are a good place to expose students to physical
activity in a fun, healthy atmosphere

5. Quality Physical Education Provides Unique Opportunities for Activity
-students who are active in physical education class are more likely to be active
outside of school

6. Quality Physical Education Teaches Self-Management and Motor Skills
-through physical education, students learn the skills they need to manage their
own daily activities and healthy living practices
-if students are taught motor skills, they are more likely to participate in physical
activities as adults because they will have the skills they need to participate

7. Physical Activity and Physical Education Promote Learning
-results of a recent study in California found that there was a positive relationship
between overall fitness and academic achievement
-other studies have found that physical education has either a positive or neutral
effect on academic performance
-studies have not found lower test scores as a result of taking time for physical
education in the curriculum

8. Regular Physical Activity Participation Makes Economic Sense
-physical inactivity and poor nutrition are the second leading cause of death in
our society
-chronic diseases caused by inactivity and poor nutrition increase health care
expenses
-physical education can be thought of as a method of disease prevention because
it addresses these problems

9. Physical Education is Widely Endorsed
-Professional, government, and private groups support physical education in
schools
-A recent survey of parents found that 91% of parents felt there should be more
physical education in schools

10. Quality Physical Education Helps to Educate the Total Child
-there is a relationship between the health of the body and the health of the mind
-both the body and the mind must be addressed when educating a child



*This article can be found at: http://www.aahperd.org/naspe/pdf_files/top10reasonsforQualityPE.pdf

Art Sites

Dennae Lovell
Visual Arts Lesson Sites

http://www.princetonol.com/groups/iad/lessons/elem/elemlessons.html

This site was I really enjoyed, it has different art projects for all grades. My favorite part of website was the pictures it had so that you could see what the final product is going to look like. My favorite art project that I saw was the sea turtle that was made by using oil pastels. This past week in my kindergarten class we used oil pastels and the students loved it. Each art lesson includes a lesson plan and lists all the items you will need for the lesson. It makes the lessons very straight forward for the teacher. Most lessons can also be adapted for other grades.

http://www.lessonplanspage.com/Art.htm

On this page you put in a grade that you are teaching and you can look at all different art lessons and pick the one you want to do in your class. The site makes it very easy to navigate and it lays out lesson plans for you it does not show examples of the final product but it does give you enough information to create a lesson. When you click on the grade you want it is broken up into different categories such as Art History and Artists, Collage, Crafts, Sculpture, 3-Dimensional Art, Cultural / World Art, Drawing and Painting the list goes on but I think you get the idea.

http://www.crayola.com/lesson-plans/

This site is so neat, I loved it! When you go to look for a lesson you put in the grade you want, the subject and a theme and then it gives all kinds of projects you can do. It also has a list of holiday crafts that you can click on and it shows all kinds of art and crafts you can do with your class. I looked at art for St. Patrick’s Day since it is coming up and one lesson was making leprechaun hats. This site has so many different ideas that you can use and they make it so easy to navigate and find what you need.

http://www.creativespotlite.com/

This site I liked because it shows you how to paint with water colors or how to use pastels. I do not think it would be good to use for k-2nd but it could if you did not go into as much detail as the site does. Each type of medium has step by step instruction that you can click on, this is an example Acrylic Painting Lessons & Techniques - Step by step acrylic painting demos, articles, and other great resources for beginners. When you look at the pictures they look really hard to do and I think are done by artists. As a teacher you could look at the steps and use them in your class.

http://www.teachnet.com/lesson/art/index.html

This site is very basic but it has some really neat links on it. One link that I liked was a play dough link and it tells you how to make all different types of play dough. I think it is something good to look at but as far as art lessons you could get a few good ideas but it does not have that many to choose from.

Katie McIntosh- Model PE Program

Model Physical Education Program: Pacific Beach Middle School

• Parent Comments Taken from http://www.greatschools.net-

- “Lastly, the PE dept. is OUTSTANDING! They are the most energetic, cutting edge group that puts in many hours of overtime with lunchtime and after school athletics for all.”
- “The P.E. Department is incredible! PE Teachers from around the county come to our site to train. Our school has a Charger Fitness room with mountain bike simulators, testing equipment, Dance Revolution and more. We have girls & boys intramural sports teams for Futsal, Soccer, Flag football and Basketball.”

• Pacific Beach Middle School offers a comprehensive Physical Education program. The Physical Education department focuses on cardiovascular fitness and motor coordination.
• They have a state-of-the-art fitness room that enhances the students’ fitness program.
• Due to funding constraints, most middle schools in the San Diego Unified School District do not offer athletic programs.
• Teacher Dennis Gildehaus says, “Students today lead sedentary lives which contributes to numerous health problems.” However, according to Gildehaus, “PB Middle School is working to provide a model program for other schools to incorporate exciting new extracurricular athletic programs.”
• Pacific Beach Middle School has one of the best physical education programs in the city, and is the only middle school in the San Diego Unified School District that has a comprehensive intramural program. The intramural program offers flag football, futsal, soccer and baseball during the lunchtime break.
• After school programs consist of flag football, soccer, track, basketball, futsal, field hockey, Leave a Legacy Club, and the Surf Club.
• PB Middle also hosts the district-wide basketball, flag football and soccer tournaments where up to fifteen other schools participate, depending on the sport.
• The school offers trendy activities which interest teens such as “Dance, Dance Revolution”, stationary bikes and waveboarding.
• PB Middle recently was awarded a grant from the San Diego Chargers to enhance the physical education program to include new equipment which will interest teens.
• Incorporating International Studies into their program brings in the education of various nationalities and their folk-dancing styles, thus building upon their knowledge and appreciation of various cultures while improving fitness and coordination.
• The school hosted a CAHPERD conference (California Association of Health and Physical Education Recreation and Dance) on October 27th. The conference was offered to professional PE teachers and students looking forward to becoming PE teachers.

Resources:

• http://members.cox.net/pefun/index.shtml
• http://moodle.sandi.net/course/view.php?id=1308_m=10_y=2007