What are the key concepts (form, function, causation, change, connection, perspective, responsibility, reflection) to be emphasized within this inquiry?
Connection, Perspective, Reflection
Related Concepts: Materials (used in art),
What lines of inquiry will define the scope of the inquiry into the central idea?
- expression of feelings and ideas in the arts
- different perspectives and interpretations of the arts
- How are feelings and ideas shown through music, art, drama, andmovement?
- What different interpretations can be made from the same piece?
- What different artistic presentations could be made about the same idea or feeling?
Class/grade: 2E, 2FAge group: 7-8 years old
School: German European School, SingaporeSchool code: 300219
Title: Express Yourself
Teachers: White, Morton
Date: 27April – 24 June 2011 PYP Planner
Proposed duration: number of hours 50over number of weeks 8 weeks
1. What is our purpose?
To inquire into the following:
How we express ourselves
An inquiry into the ways in which we discover and express ideas, feelings, nature, culture, belief and values; the ways in which we reflect on, extend and enjoy our creativity: our appreciation of the aesthetic.
•Central Idea
Through creative arts, we can express and interpret our ideas and feelings.
Summative assessment task(s):
What are the possible ways of assessing students’ understanding of the central idea? What evidence, including student-initiated actions, will we look for?
A collection of the pieces created throughout the unit with a self-reflection for each piece. Collected in pockets with lovely ribbon.
Thinking Skills – Application, Analysis
Communication Skills – Non-verbal, Writing (poem, narrative)
Mathematics – Properties of 2D and 3D Shape – Snap with shapes, properties and names of and play game. Reflection of game.
4. . How best might we learn?
What are the learning experiences suggested by the teacher and/or students to encourage the students to engage with the inquiries and address the driving questions?
Tuning in – what is perspective? De Bono’s thinking hats – situation ( bullying). Looking an object from different points of view ( an apple) from the pov of a scientist, a mathematician, a story teller ( Newton and the apple) writer and an artist. - Do paint blow art and interpret what it looks like.
Finding out - Have the kids bring in music from home. Listen together and discuss ideas and feelings perceived. Do movement to music.
- Explore different mediums of artistic expression and different artists around the world and in history
1. Photography – theme-related, emotions( Bullying, environmental issues, to tell a story, to school rules) Mr Buchholz to give talk to classes about taking photographs.
2. Art –sculpture – Rodin. Learner profile connection, children to choose a profile and make a sculpture through clay.( THIS AT THE BEGINNING OF THE UNIT perhaps rotated with photography)
3.Poetry reading – Performance poetry, writing poetry ( Shameers poetry book) ShelSiverstein , Bruce Landsky ( Ggigglepoetry.com) Jack Prelutsky’s poems.
4. Interpreting music through art – listening to 10 clips of music on student media folder and make a drawing that could represent a story from the music.
5.narrative writing –Plan, write and edit through first steps writing/ reading. Use the previous units work as a provacation/prompt.
6. Acting out scripts, related to LA
7. Movement to music (PE connection?)
8. ICT link – used Kids Britannica – researched famous artists (Van Gogh, Warhol, Pollack, Rousseau, etc)
What opportunities will occur for transdisciplinary skills development and for the development of the attributes of the learner profile?
Any presentation of expression in arts, movement, music or drama is using one’s communication skills, speaking and non-verbal to relay a message or idea. Learner profile: risk taker, communicator; Attitudes: perspective, creativity; TD Skills:from summative task - Thinking Skills – Application, Analysis. Communication Skills – Non-verbal, Writing (poem, narrative)
3. How might we know what we have learned?This column should be used in conjunction with “How best might we learn?”
What are the possible ways of assessing students’ prior knowledge and skills? What evidence will we look for?
Interpreting the Central Idea- Cut up the CI (or one of two parts) and place words in envelope. Have groups determine how to arrange the sentence of the CI. Discuss prior knowledge and experiences in the arts.
What are the possible ways of assessing student learning in the context of the lines of inquiry? What evidence will we look for?
- expression of feelings and ideas in arts
- different perspectives and interpretations of art
How the arts can tell a story - Using the Mercer Mayer titles – One Frog Too Many, Frog Goes to Dinner, Frog on His Own and other wordless books students create their own text or drama. These are shared and compared with the other groups.
5. What resources need to be gathered?
What people, places, audio-visual materials, related literature, music, art, computer software, etc, will be available?
Various music samples (loaded on server by ICT), Asian Civilisation Museum, Act 3, Singapore Art Museum, National Museum of Singapore, Van Gogh movie at I Max, Van Gogh exhibit at Art and Science Museum
How will the classroom environment, local environment, and/or the community be used to facilitate the inquiry?
Specialist Teacher Links – Music and Visual Arts, Classroom teachers – Focus on drama and movement, writing, discussion, perspectives, wordless books,; community- museums, events, parents,etc
6. To what extent did we achieve our purpose?
Assess the outcome of the inquiry by providing evidence of students’ understanding of the central idea. The reflections of all teachers involved in the planning and teaching of the inquiry should be included.
Through creative arts, we can express and interpret our ideas and feelings.
When looking at Van Gogh’s Starry Night (as puzzle pieces), students choose own colours and when put puzzle together, we discussed why we chose certain colours and why Van Gogh would have chosen his colours. Discussed how certain colours provoke certain emotions.
When researching famous artists on Kids Britannica found interesting facts on history of them, like Picasso’s father knew he was very talented at a very young age. Then taken style of researched artist, kids have blended or adapted artists techniques in their own creative ways. Links has been made with different art works and feelings they are meant to evoke and poems have been written connected to art.
How you could improve on the assessment task(s) so that you would have a more accurate picture of each student’s understanding of the central idea.
It will be a lot of work to collate it. It was a good way for children to experience a wide variety of mediums and ways of expression but it wasn’t always an expression of their own ideas and feelings.
Narrative writing books has been very successful and students later wrote reviews for each other’s stories.
What was the evidence that connections were made between the central idea and the transdisciplinary theme?
Through creative arts, we can express and interpret our ideas and feelings.
How we express ourselves
An inquiry into the ways in which we discover and express ideas, feelings, nature, culture, belief and values; the ways in which we reflect on, extend and enjoy our creativity: our appreciation of the aesthetic.
In art pieces they’ve made themselves and the reflections, looking at famous works and explaining what we like and don’t like and what motivates artists.
7. To what extent did we include the elements of the PYP?
What were the learning experiences that enabled students to:
•develop an understanding of the concepts identified in “What do we want to learn?”
•demonstrate the learning and application of particular transdisciplinary skills?
•develop particular attributes of the learner profile and/or attitudes?
In each case, explain your selection.
Concepts - Connection- How art shows feelings and emotions, how authors and illustrators connect to reader
Perspective- specifically taught this to the kids at start of unit – used Bono’s thinking kids to analyse certain situations in school (how different pp view same thing), looking at an apple (linked to Newton), Picasso
Reflection – especially when looking at their own pieces of art.
Transdisciplinary Skills
Thinking SkillsApplication – using art skills learnt in pieces for summative task
Analysis – explaining how pieces of art (their own and others) represent feeing and emotions.
Communication Skills-Writing – poetry, singing of poems and narrative
Non-verbal Communication – messages their art portrays to audience
Learner Profile Attitudes - Risk-taker-having a go attitude at different forms of art, expressing their own thoughts and ideas and hoping that others will accept their ideas as ok
-Communicator – through art produced messages
9. Teacher notes
As a grade group, we held an assembly open to students to allow them to express themselves in any way they wanted. This could possible lead to a new summative task for next year.
Resources:
- Read and discuss related literature…
1. Ish by Peter Reynolds – a boy learns his drawings don’t have to look perfect to be appreciated. (can also read The Dot by same author)
2. Class collage of a master’s work (Starry night or Bed of Tulips) students are given a portion of the painting and not told what it is about. They colour it according to their interpretation and then it is all pieced together as a whole picture.
3. Zoom – power Point presentation related to perception of art. Students had to guess what the PP was about.
4. Picasso and the Girl with a Ponytail by Lawrence Anholt – details how Picasso made more than 40 images of one girl. Art activity. Another title by same author and similar theme is Degas and the Little Dancer.
5. Look:Body Language in Art by Gillian Wolfe – non-fiction, explains how to interpret certain aspects of paintings (people’s faces and body stance, what message do they portray).
6. Playscripts – Students acted out various plays based on Aseop’s Fables
7. Other Titles related to topic – Katie Meets the Impressionists, Katie and the Sunflowers by James Mayhew, The Colors of Us by Karen Katz, Camille and the Sunflowers, Feelings to Share from A to Z by Todd and Peggy Snow, The Van Gogh Café by Cynthia Rylant, Imagine That: Activities and Adventures in Surrealism by KoyceRaimondo, Art Around Us World Book’s Childcraft, Eyewitness: Dance, Eyewitness: Music,
Intergration
- PE – Gymnastics. Portfolio piece.
- ICT – FRESCO changing a well known piece of art work. BBC music website and differing music.
- Art – Clay models linking to the Learner Profile (pre-skills with play dough) and looking at famous artists and their mediums
- Music – improvisation/composing ( maybe taping?)
- GMT – writing a story /fairy tales, theatres and playscripts ( Portfolio)
- GSL – no link
- GFL - No link for this unit
8. What student-initiated inquiries arose from the learning?
Record a range of student-initiated inquiries and student questions and highlight any that were incorporated into the teaching and learning.
Not many questions came from students, but many did stem from teacher questions.
How did Van Gogh die? (How did many artists die?)
How did ______(artist) make this piece of art?
At this point teachers should go back to box 2 “What do we want to learn?” and highlight the teacher questions/provocations that were most effective in driving the inquiries.
- How are feelings and ideas shown through music, art, drama, and movement?
- What different interpretations can be made from the same piece?
- What different artistic presentations could be made about the same idea or feeling?
Record student-initiated actions taken by individuals or groups showing their ability to reflect, to choose and to act.
Children brought in Mark Rothko paintings and re-created several artists work.
Many wanted to share dance, poems, etc to class.
Before unit started, a few kids did art gallery visits with parents.
Some brought in photos from trips seeing art, like sculptures.
They started to recognise artists work and styles of art just when flipping through magazines, books, etc.
Some have shown an interest in photography and asked for cameras from parents.
Some who’ve never done a type of art before (guitar, dance, singing) are now being risk-takers and performing for the class.