Introduction to Music

This week in art class we started working on music. We were all asked to bring in our favorite piece of music and share it with the class. I brought in "59th Street Bridge Song" by Simon and Garfunkel. The entire album reminds me of a time when I gave my dad's music a shot and really started to enjoy music that I had not heard on the radio.

Bringing this piece in to share with the class was another experience in which I felt that I had opened myself up for scrutiny by exposing a piece of my life. In return the rest of the class also shared with me their favorite music. By the end of the activity I felt that we all knew a bit more about each other and that was informative and a special moment.

Following the sharing of our music, we got to investigate some different ideas about how we could use music in the classroom and benefits of doing it. I like this idea of bringing fundamental human culture to the classroom because students want and deserve a real experience. The more of it we can provide through enriching facets of our activities the better we have served our classroom, school, and community.

Geography Activity

Today we worked with the overarching subject of Geography in the classroom. I thought it was interesting how many different concepts can be introduced and linked under the Geography 'umbrella', as it was so aptly named in class. There were many activities talked about at surface level, but the one that stuck so deeply brought it close to home.

While looking at this subject we talked about our favorite places that we have experienced and why we chose to share them. This took me to a very happy place at the bottom of a mountain in Colorado. I have been there twice and probably spent an entire week there altogether. Somehow though, I feel like I have years in that spot. It is so alive in my mind that thinking and talking about it in class reminds me of the wonder of that place. I think this would be a great way for students to bring places and locations alive for each other in the classroom.

Anyways, this was a fun exercise to spread our knowledge of places to others (along with pictures), and would have many applications in our elementary classrooms. I plan on bringing fun knowledgeable approaches to Geography in my classroom.

And to top it off I have posted a picture roughly from where I wrote about in my classroom journal.

Geographic Garble

In class today we investigated a fun way to introduce students to different towns in a fun and very creative activity known as "Geographic Garble". The concept is hard to explain, and at first it felt like we were dealing with complex coded language. After working with a couple of the towns in a packet we got to make our own in our assigned state.

After creating some of the garbles for our state we saw some interesting ways to give our classmates a hint and still keep the mystery of the activity intact. Using concepts about maps, such as grids, we could lead our classmates to the correct answer without ruining the fun. Great class activity, with an art integration.

Here is Montana's Geographic Garble.