Okay, teacher friends: during cleanup time, do your students remember to put the caps on the glue sticks? Do they put them on properly? Do they put them on at all? It seems that I always need to remind many of my elementary students to do this little chore without smashing the top of the glue stick into the cap. How could I get this point across to them in a way that students would remember?
The first thing I tried was modeling. I had my classroom puppet, Alien, explain how to open the glue stick, turn it up a bit, and turn it down before putting the cap on so you don’t squish the glue stick’s little “head.” Kindergarten and first grade students loved this, but it seemed that many students still “forgot.” Wasting glue is not good for the art budget. Repeating the same phrase over and over: not so good for the teacher’s brain.

I took a photo of one of our glue sticks in an art supply basket I put at each table. Then I opened the ChatterPix app, chose my photo, then selected “next.” The app prompted me to draw a line where I wanted the mouth to appear and I tapped the record button to record my voice. I added sticker eyes and my talking glue stick came alive!
If you watched the video, you probably noticed that this glue stick has a man’s voice- not mine! That’s because when I got home to show my husband, he really wanted to create the voice for it, and I agreed. This way, the students know it is not me… it is the glue stick’s real voice (wink, wink)!  Honestly, glue stick etiquette has improved, and some students look for that talking glue stick in their supply basket!
In ChatterPix Kids, you have 30 seconds to record your voice, you can also add stickers and text. When your recording is complete, simply send it to your camera roll. It is an easy and engaging app for students to create their own animated image.
When I first discovered this app by Duck Duck Moose, I planned on having students use it to describe their art. Just think of the possibilities! Students can create art, take a picture of it and describe their process. In their classrooms, students can tell a story with this app, or take a picture of an inanimate object, give it a voice and embed it in a presentation.
True arts integration is teaching and learning through two or more different content areas. Across all grades and disciplines, students must learn to speak audibly and express their ideas clearly. This is written in the English Language Arts CCSS in Speaking and Listening. Creating audio recordings is encouraged and listed in those same standards starting in second grade.
In our new National Core Arts Standards, students are Creating, Presenting, Responding and Connecting. Within Presenting, students can use technology to exhibit their work, create new content and create digital portfolios. I have listed some of the CCSS and NCAS that align with this app below.
Do you have ideas for lessons that include ChatterPix or other ways to give a picture a voice? I’d love to hear about your creative lessons. Leave a comment below!

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.2.5
Create audio recordings of stories or poems; add drawings or other visual displays to stories or recounts of experiences when appropriate to clarify ideas, thoughts, and feelings.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.4.5
Add audio recordings and visual displays to presentations when appropriate to enhance the development of main ideas or themes.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.5.5
Include multimedia components (e.g., graphics, sound) and visual displays in presentations when appropriate to enhance the development of main ideas or themes.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.11-12.5
Make strategic use of digital media (e.g., textual, graphical, audio, visual, and interactive elements) in presentations to enhance understanding of findings, reasoning, and evidence and to add interest.
NATIONAL CORE ARTS STANDARDS- Visual Arts
Anchor Standard 4: Select, analyze, and interpret artistic work for presentation.
VA:Pr4.1.3a
Visual Arts, Presenting, grade 3
Investigate and discuss possibilities and limitations of spaces, including electronic, for exhibiting artwork.
VA:Pr4.1.IIa
Visual Arts, Presenting, high school
Analyze, select, and critique personal artwork for a collection or portfolio presentation.

​This post was first published on Education Closet.

I teach art in a great elementary school and one of the most exciting parts of my job is co-teaching with classroom teachers during nine week arts integration blocks. In our HOT School, these are called HOT Blocks: once a week sessions with lessons designed so all students, and especially those in need of academic support, can learn through multiple intelligences and the arts in addition to conventional methods.


When I met with the first grade teachers to plan our HOT Block lessons, they mentioned that many students needed to review nouns: a person, place or thing. Proper nouns need a capital letter. Reviewing sentence structure and those all important capital letters at the beginning of a sentence and don’t forget our ending punctuation!


The CCSS for Language in first grade call for students to write, and write often. The National Core Arts Standards call for students to Engage collaboratively in exploration and imaginative play with materials. On the first day, the classroom teacher reviewed nouns and had the students start with pictures. Since nouns can be a person, place or thing, that is what we had them do first: choose one of each and draw a separate picture for each one.

The students cut their pictures apart and glued them down onto a dark piece of construction paper. Under each drawing they wrote “person, place, thing” with a metallic colored pencil. Cool art supplies are mandatory!
​

During our next HOT Block, I modeled with my noun pictures how they will use their three nouns together to create a creative sentence and draw a picture. A few students volunteered different ways to use my three words to create different, and sometimes silly sentences. We gave the students their papers from last week and they were excited to create a new illustration and sentences with their nouns!

It is fun for students to play with language and drawing. Reviewing language and art standards in this way is developmentally appropriate for all ages, the student creates their own graphic (art) organizer.

Scroll down for the CCSS and NCAS for this lesson, and let me know how you use drawing to help students remember, practice and learn!


English Language Arts Standards for Language covered in these lessons:
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.1.1
Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English grammar and usage when writing or speaking.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.1.1.A
Print all upper- and lowercase letters.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.1.1.B
Use common, proper, and possessive nouns.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.1.2
Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English capitalization, punctuation, and spelling when writing.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.1.2.A
Capitalize dates and names of people.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.1.2.B
Use end punctuation for sentences.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.1.2.E
Spell untaught words phonetically, drawing on phonemic awareness and spelling conventions.

National Core Arts Standards taught in these lessons:
Anchor Standard 1: Generate and conceptualize artistic ideas and work
Enduring Understanding: Creativity and innovative thinking are essential life skills that can be developed.
VA:Cr1.1.1a: Engage collaboratively in exploration and imaginative play with materials. (Nouns)
 
Anchor Standard 2: Organize and develop artistic ideas and work
Enduring Understanding: People create and interact with objects, places, and design that define, shape, enhance, and empower their lives.
VA:Cr2.3.1a: Identify and classify uses of everyday objects through drawings, diagrams, sculptures, or other visual means.

This blog was first published on Education Closet.

Last month, I was planning an arts integration unit with two fourth grade teachers. For students who are learning math with higher level concepts, the arts can be a very natural connector. In our school, these once-a-week planning sessions are called HOT Blocks. Classes work with their classroom teacher and me (the art teacher) for about nine weeks to learn reading, writing, math or science concepts through art.

I have worked with fourth grade content before, but I never taught angles in math. All I could remember was obtuse, acute and right angles. Time for me to review my CCSS for math (and figure out how to fit in cubism.)

Observing these students at work during their regular math lesson was very useful. I could see how they were applying their knowledge of geometry and how they used protractors. One of the teachers had the brilliant idea to use cubism for our arts integration lessons, known as HOT Blocks. Fabulous!

We decided to review angles, have students look at, learn about and critique cubist art, and then the students would find angles in one of the art works.

Next, the students learned about cubist art, Picasso, and viewed and talked about many of his cubist works. The classroom teachers and I discovered that fourth grade students love talking about abstract art! Pretty cool.

LEARNING MATH THROUGH ARTHere are the Common Core Math and National Arts Standards that we addressed in this lesson:

CCSS: Draw and identify lines and angles, and classify shapes by properties of their lines and angles.
CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.4.G.A.1
Draw points, lines, line segments, rays, angles (right, acute, obtuse), and perpendicular and parallel lines. Identify these in two-dimensional figures.
CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.4.G.A.2
Classify two-dimensional figures based on the presence or absence of parallel or perpendicular lines, or the presence or absence of angles of a specified size. Recognize right triangles as a category, and identify right triangles.
CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.4.G.A.3
Recognize a line of symmetry for a two-dimensional figure as a line across the figure such that the figure can be folded along the line into matching parts. Identify line-symmetric figures and draw lines of symmetry.

National Core Arts Standards:Responding: Understanding and evaluating how the arts convey meaning
Anchor Standard #7. Perceive and analyze artistic work.
Anchor Standard #8. Interpret intent and meaning in artistic work.
Anchor Standard #9. Apply criteria to evaluate artistic work.

Connecting:Relating artistic ideas and work with personal meaning and external context.
Anchor Standard #10. Synthesize and relate knowledge and personal experiences to make art.

Students had their own copy of Picasso’s Factory at Horto de Ebro to find, measure, color and label different angles. They enjoyed this lesson and reviewed geometry simultaneously! Awesome.