Lucky me!  I had a student teacher this year who was a theatre arts major before switching to Early Childhood.  I had told him about the Arts Academy and how it was changing my thinking about teaching small children.  He jumped at the chance to do a play with our students.  It was a lot of hard work on our parts and it took a lot of patience to deal with 30 morning students and 32 afternoon students in the beginning, but as we moved into the dancing and acting the kids just got into it.  We broke it down into 30 minute practices for several weeks which was appropriate for 5 and 6 year olds.  We even did a lesson about, beginning, middle, end using this book since they were so familiar with it.   We found music and the story on a teachers resource site on the web.  We had our Arts Specialist help with the scenery. Our set was fashioned like a book and as the story went along students turned the pages.  We had a wonderful Mom who is a wood worker build our set and it was amazing. I loved that the children all had the play memorized by the end of the program since they had heard it over and over again.

My student teacher was so good at breaking down what we had to do in reasonable segments.  He typed up the script, directed the acting and dancing. He also used Garage Band to record the kids voices reading the story.  I helped with the costumes which were butcher paper the kids had painted to look like animal skins.  Our art specialist came up with the horns made from cotton candy cones that we taped to a card stock strip.  They were held in place by yarn tied under the kids chins. The day of the play we painted their faces to look like wild things.

The day of our program which was held in the empty kindergarten room we were filled to capacity.  We had at least 80 parents, grandparents, and siblings there.  Everyone was so thrilled with their child’s performance!  What I enjoyed is how much the children loved the experience.  We still talk about it.  The confidence they acquired from this experience was far more important than any academics we might have missed due to the time spent practicing and performing the play.

I am now in the process of looking at different ideas for next year that I can do on my own.  I know that I would not have thought this was possible with 5-6 year olds had I not attended Arts Academy this year.

Little did I know that when my principal asked me if I wanted to go to ARTS ACADEMY my whole life would change!   I literally look at everything through a new lense.  That lense is colored with art, dance, music, drama and singing.  I have integrated all these components in my everyday teaching.

My classes of five and six year-olds do the Brain Dance everyday.  Due to the generous stipend we were given we use the Brain Dance Music CD. I also purchased 4 CD’s titled Music for Creative Dance.  The CD’s also came with ideas for teaching dance concepts. If we need a transition we will put on some of our new music and move to the music to get where we are going.  The music on these CD’s is so unique.  There is a huge variety in instruments and styles on the CD’s it has been fun to see my students react to the music. I have been using it while the children do their writing.  We talk about what some of the instruments are and how the music helps us think while we are working.  We have been learning about whales this week and one of the CD’s has a whale song.  I also use my Djembe drum everyday.  I purchased a DVD with the drum and it has been really helpful to learn proper technique. I use it to get my students attention and also have the children move to the beat while they are lining up or while we are waiting for everyone to gather.   I can’t wait for summer so I can pursue this further with more practice.  I bought a beautiful drum from Marko Johnson and I love to use it for transitions and for skipping to our places.  My favorite thing has been using some old favorite songs that we always sang, and having the children find a dance space in the room and then we literally dance around the room.  I call out a dance term and the children immediately assume that pose or move.  I put up posters with the dance terms  that Marilyn gave us and just glance at them for ideas.  One difficult student always says, “that was fun” after we do a dance.  It is so funny to watch the parent helpers as we all find a place and then I put on the music and we all just dance. Some Mom helpers dance with us and others just sit and smile as they watch us dance.   My aides are great and they just dance right along with us. They both told me that they love getting up and moving around and they feel better after we dance.  It has been fun. I feel happier too!

We have been blessed to have an Art Specialist in our school due to the grant and my children are always asking about going to art.  They love it and many have just blossomed in the visual arts area.  I never knew before that kindergarten children were so capable of creating such amazing art.

The biggest change for me has been my confidence!  I do not feel so inhibited about letting the children explore the arts.  I will probably never be an amazing, artist, dancer, singer, or actor but I can instill in my students a love of these things through my teaching and sharing my love of them with them.

Thank you everyone for an amazing experience this year!

Before Arts Academy I had pretty much accepted that my greatest strength in teaching was not in the arts.  I have always helped organize our Arts Month at our school, and looked for opportunities for our school to be involved with the arts, through assemblies etc.  Well, after last month I decided that I could work on my artistic side even after 10 years of teaching and having stopped sketching in high school.  I got out my old sketch book because I still don’t have the confidence to put my sketches in our Arts Academy sketch book, but hopefully in a while I won’t be so shy about it.  I have spent many evenings sketching when I should have been doing dishes or wash, and I don’t regret a moment of it.

This is the first workshop I have been to that I didn’t come home feeling overwhelmed and uptight about all the changes I needed to make in my teaching. I felt like everything I had learned could be integrated in what I was already doing.  I started the first day back by doing the brain dance with my students, now they remind me if we don’t do it.  I told the children we were waking our brain up so our brain and our body could work together.  That first afternoon in my pm kindergarten class, a student told me his brain and body were awake and that he had been awake since 8:00 that morning.  He now does the brain dance with no complaints.  To tell you the truth I feel more focused and that my teaching has improved.   I am so lucky to be able to do it twice a day!

I have tried to use more music, and the days when we sing and dance a few times a day, I feel like we have had a happy day.  I have used more classical music when the students are working.  They quiet right down and it helps to slow our pace down.

Since my new attitude about teaching the students to draw I decided to do a still life of sunflowers in a vase.  We started by drawing ovals on scratch paper,  then we moved to our big art paper.  I taught it to half my class at a time, and in one session a Dad helper joined us.  He was helping the children color their sunflowers and I heard him using some very artsty words to give them suggestions.  I told him it would be really funny and embarrassing to me if he was an art major.  He dropped the bomb by telling me he had attended BYU on an arts scholarship, but had not graduated in art!  We both laughed and he was very complimentary, and told me I had done a great job.  He told me he would not have broken it down to the level I had to teach it to 5-6 year olds. Thanks, Scott for your great lesson.  We are displaying our mounted, laminated sunflowers for Parent Teacher Conferences next month.

Heather Oakeson