Harvesting Arts Integration

This is your monthly “Spark” newsletter for all things arts integration. At Partner Learning we believe in art being at the core of learning and we know this requires the support of a collaborative partner. This October we are highlighting some arts integration projects that can be brought to life during this festive, sometimes spooky, autumn-rich month.

NOTE: These are teacher-facing resources, be sure to preview materials before sharing with students.

Create a Puppet

October is often a month that classrooms spend researching and writing about animals such as spiders and bats. It connects nicely with comparing/ contrasting texts, informational writing, and also with fiction books it can be a fitting opportunity to retell a story. Creating a bat puppet can be a worthwhile strategy for students to practice following directions and apply their dexterity. The creation of the puppet can lead to being used to animate/ read student writing. Here is a bat puppet video created by the Center for Puppetry Arts that walks you through creating “Stella Luna” the puppet. And here is a spider puppet video by Paper Magic Reny.

Nature Collages

Fall is a great time to study the artwork by the Renaissance artist, Giuseppe Arcimboldo. 

Here is a website that explores various of his paintings by Arcimboldo. 

Studying this art is a great connection to children’s literature such as “Leaf Man” by Lois Ehlert. After studying Arcimboldo and reading the text Leaf Man, students can create their own nature collages. Students may make self-portraits or woodland critters and write a story for their character.

Yayoi Kusama Inspired Art & Math

Fall is a great time to study the artwork by the Japanese artist, Yayoi Kusama. 

Here is a website that talks about the artist’s inspiration she pulls from pumpkins. And here is a website that tells you more about the artist in general. 

Once students learn about the art of Kusama, allow students to free-hand draw their own pumpkin filling a large piece of white paper. Then ask them to smother the pumpkin with colorful dots. Glow-in-the-dark oil pastels can make for a super fun reveal at the end with a black light flashlight. Also consider including a “power-sheet” that assists students with tallying up their colorful dots and doing some addition and subtraction problems by classifying the dots, for example, “Add together your red and purple dots, write this down as an addition sentence”.

This project is most appropriate for K-2 students but I am sure there are some mastermind teachers out there who will adapt this to work with the upper grades too!

Create an Arts Vocabulary Word Wall

Most elementary classrooms are equipped with designated word walls to expose students to words whether it be sight words or content vocabulary words. Why not consider creating Arts Integration Word Walls that include the vocabulary for each art form? To begin familiarizing students with arts vocabulary, start small and as you introduce a new “arts term” or vocabulary word, add it to your wall in your classroom. 

To access arts vocabulary sheets organized by art form, link here

Office Hours

We know when engaging in arts integration, we all need a “thought partner”. This is why our team will hold monthly virtual office hours after- school on Wednesdays (2:45- 3:15 pm) 

K & Grade 1: 1st Wednesday of each month

Grade 2 & 3: 3rd Wednesday of each month

Grade 4 & 5: 4th Wednesday of each month