Observation #1- the Wonderful Mrs. Lacrua

If you want to see a GREAT teacher, I would highly recommend stopping by the 3rd Grade classroom of Mrs. Lacrua. From the moment I stepped into her classroom, I was thoroughly impressed.

For my first observation, I had the opportunity to watch her teach a literacy lesson.

Classroom Management

If someone would have told you that you had stepped into a 3rd grade classroom, you may not have believed them for how well behaved these students were. They all had their eyes focused on the screen and was strictly focused on the content at hand and what the teacher was teaching them.
Mrs. Lacrua did an amazing job of gathering ideas from the students while also maintaining a high expectation of focus and dedication from the students. I was frantically taking notes of things I could use and incorporate in my future classroom.

Art's Incorporation

Whether Mrs. Lacrua realized it or not, she was incorporating the arts. When the students were writing their persuasive essay on while vanilla ice cream was the best, the students were using this song, (to a familiar children's lullaby)

"Hook, opinion, reasons three. Example, opinion, so you'll see. Stating our opinion help us be. Writers of the century!"

The students knew every word! She was teaching them the sequencing of writing while also allowing them to learn music. The combination of the two created a memorized song that the students will be able to store in their memory for a long time.

This practice continued when I heard the song for all the multiples of 3, to clean up and different attention signals. I could see just in this first observation that Mrs. Lacrua had a great ability to incorporate the arts and I could see how her students were already benefiting from this tool.

After this observation...I'm excited to get started! I'm excited to see how I can take arts integration one step further by incorporating it in movement. I'm excited to learn how to continue to teach students how to dance and help them learn content through music and dance. I know I've got a supported and phenomenal teacher backing me up, a great mentor at BYU supporting me and an amazing experience ahead of me.

The What, Why & How!

The What, Why & How of BYU Art's Bridge

My name is Miss Miner and I am currently an Arts Bridge Scholar at Brigham Young University. As an elementary education major, I am learning that there is a good way of teaching and then there is a great way. 

The secret is to incorporate the arts. 

You may just think I'm saying that because it's my job but there are many studies that show when children are able to learn from more tools than just a textbook, where they can dig deeper into a concept and explore using their movement- their better able to learn and obtain the information that is used for life. 

Think about it. You remember the 50 states because of the song you learned. You suddenly remember the thriller song even though you learned it ten years ago. You remember in 5th grade when you put on that silly play but how much it meant to you. You remember. 

Even with all the studies that show what a different the arts can make in a classroom though, many teachers aren't incorporating it, faculty members don't support it and some people are unsure of how to change their style of teaching or don't want to change their style of teaching. 

This is where the BYU Art's Bridge comes in. 

Art's Bridge is a wonderful program where current BYU students have the opportunity to be paired with a teacher in the local schools districts, and the students incorporate a certain art form in the classroom. 

The BYU Art's Bridge website says, "Art's bridge provides an opportunity for classroom teachers to have an in depth and practical experience in the selected art form. Art scholars have the opportunity to spend time with a practicing teacher, gaining experience in classroom management, lesson planning and team teaching. BYU faculty provide mentoring for the arts scholars while building relationships with public school teachers. The Art's bridge program follows the model from ArtsBridge America, a national network of similar programs that has been implemented in over 30 universities throughout the United States."

The Arts can make such a huge difference and whether it's dance, music, art of drama, these art forms take students from just being basic learners to being exceptional learners. I've seen this. I've personally experienced this. 

So for the next couple of months,  I will have the opportunity to incorporate the art form of DANCE in an amazing third grade classroom. I will be posting my lesson plans, experiences and incorporating both the Utah Common Core and dance in the classroom.