Arts Integration

Strategies Toolkit
Lauren Hodson

Quick Guide to

ways you
can include Arts Integration
Strategies in your classroom
today!

Includes:

Visual Art
Drama
Music
Dance

Visual Art

Strategies

See, Think, Wonder : (Education Closet and Harvard Project Zero)

Visual Art, ELA, All Content Areas, Critical Thinking

Show students an image. This could be a work of Art, a Scientific image, or a photograph in History.
Follow the below steps. The student answers could be discussed or written, but always shared.

See: What do you See? Be literal with no inferences.

Think: What do you think about that? Student infer the context for the image. Maybe the mood the
image conveys.

Wonder: What does it make you wonder? The Why and How questions

Find out More Link: Visible Thinking

Journaling : (Education Closet)

All Content Areas

Students can use this process to creatively record ideas or concepts from class to class

Find out More Link: Artful Journaling

Headlines :
All Content Areas

Show students an image and ask them to describe it using no more than 6 words as a headline

Tell students some information about the image and have them repeat the process with more
background information.

Find out More Link: 6 Word Memoirs for Education

Infographics : (Piktochart.com)
Technology, Visual Art, All Content Areas, ELA, Critical Thinking

Create an Infographic online about a unit topic of choice. An Infographic is Art For Your Brain

Go to Piktochart.com and use tutorials to learn the basics of the online platform

Emphasize key information to be included based on your learning objective

Example: Students use infographics to highlight a time period in history, explain the solar system,
artistic book report, or explain math principles.

Find out More Link: Piktochart For Education

Virtual Museums : (Scholastic.com)

Technology, Visual Art, Social Studies, ELA, Critical Thinking
Students will...

create a Google Slideshow as a Virtual Museum

visit museum websites and collect artwork or artifacts that align with a unit of study.

copy and paste images into their slideshow while citing their sources

write about their selections and answer critical questions you have posed based on your objective.
Allow them to explain their choices while making connections to the unit content

Find out More Link: Scholastic: Virtual Museums

Drama

Strategies

Actors Toolbox : (Education Closet)

All Content Areas

Explain the 5 tools that actors use: Voice, Body, Imagination, Concentration, and Collaboration.

Explore each one with a warm-up (see Script)

Use all of the Tools to depict a scene from a story, depict a painting or image, etc.

Find out More Link: Actor's Toolbox Steps

Actor's Toolbox Script

Tableau : (Education Closet)

All Content Areas

Recreate an image, scene, or photograph using tableau, or frozen picture using bodies.

Remind students to collaborate and use high, medium, and low movements

Find out More Link:Tableau

Step Into the Painting : (Education Closet)

All Content Areas

Start with looking at an image

Create a frozen tableau wherein students can select a person or thing in the image

When prompted, students should describe what is happening in the image as their character or
about their character specifically.

Find out More Link: Step into the Painting Technique

Complete the Image : (DBI Network)

All Content Areas: Especially ELA

Start with an Image or illustration from a story..

Describe and Analyze what is going on in that image.

Have students write about what happened before the scene in the image and share their thoughts

Have students about what happens after the the scene in the image and share their thoughts.

Combine techniques by having students perform a frozen tableau and when tapped, explain what
happens either before or after this.

Find out More Link: Drama Based Instruction

Hot Seating : (Drama Resource)

All Content Areas: Especially ELA

A student, or groups of students are being interviewed by the rest of the class. They take on the
role of a character(s) in a story.

Students ask them questions about motivation, behavior, background, etc.

This may take some preparation and a warm-up activity. Try beginning with someone famous.

Teachers should be a facilitator in this activity to ensure meaningful conversation

Find out More Link: Drama Resource

Music

Strategies

Painting the Form : (Education Closet)

For music classes: Students are broken up into groups of players and painters

Pick a song with an A, B, and C section or form

For other classes: Students can listen to a piece of music from an outside source like watching a
video of a symphony. TRY: Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker

Students paint to the music in sections A, B, and C

A: Paint and simulate the actions of the players

B: Walk around the Painting

C: Turn it upside down

A: Paint again

Call

Critical Listening : (Education Closet)

Students listen to a piece of music

Students then are asked to identify key details of that piece of music and identify what they
represent and what instrument is used to create the sound.

Improvisation Frame : (Education Closet)

Students create a square around the room. In the center of the square is an instrument of choice.

One student moves to the center of the square and plays four beats of music. The next student
plays those four beats and then adds their own. This continues until an entire song is composed.

Find out More Link: Improvisation Frame

A Stomping Good Time : (Education World)

Students create a performance based on the group STOMP

Students will view performances done by the group and gather materials that can produce sound.

Students will also decide on a notation system to compose movement and sound for a 2 minute
performance. A video will be made of their performance for presentation.

Find out More Link: Stomping Good Time

and Response : (Education Closet)

Begin small by clapping four times in pattern and have students repeat
Do this again, but clap an additional pattern while students are listening to the first one.
Students will have to listen to the nest pattern while clapping the first.
Continue this process while adding more patterns to the end.
Find out More Link:Call and Response

Dance

Strategies

Mirroring : (Education Closet)

Play a piece of music while two students stand in front of each other. One student assumes the role
of leader and the other student mirrors, or copies the others movements.

Students should switch roles and repeat

Students begin again, but this time they must switch roles in the middle of the song without
speaking. Remind students to move in high, medium, and low spaces. Remind students also that
they can move with fluidity or mechanical motions.

Find out More Link: Mirroring

Freeze Frame : (Education Closet)

Play music and instruct students to freeze when they hear something specific in the music.

Students can freeze in an emotion when they recognize that part of the music.

Sequencing : (Education Closet)

Listen and Analyze a piece of music. What is the story of this piece? What is happening in the
beginning, middle, and end?

Break students into 3 groups and have them choreograph a dance that describes the story.

Have student preset separately and then put it all together.

Geometry in Dance : (Arts Integration Teachers)

Watch a video of dancers performing and discuss the angles and shapes that are seen.

Break students into groups and have them choreograph at least 5 geometric concepts that they saw
into a dance. Have a discussion with students about the connections they saw between math and
dance.

This process can be adapted to much mathematical vocabulary. (x and y axis, rotate, symmetry)

Find out More Link: Geometry in Dance

Parts of Speech and Dance : (Wake County Public Schools)

Students brainstorm how words can be described through dance. Poetry, imagery, scenes, lyrics

Define the Parts of Speech (noun, verb, adjective, adverb, and preposition)

In dance terms, a noun says what or who moves, a verb says what you are doing, an adverb says
how you are doing it and a preposition says where you are doing it (Susan Hartley)

Teacher distributes an adverb card, verb card, and preposition card.

Students decide what their movements would look like and choreograph a dance based on that
relationship. The dance should have a beginning, middle, and end.

Find out More Link: Parts of Speech and Dance

Sources &

Resources

Visual Art:
Gonzalo, Back to School: How I teach a language class with infographic visuals, August 13, 2015.
http://piktochart.com/blog/backtoschool-how-i-teach-a-language-class-with-infographic-visuals/
Harvard Project Zero: Visible Thinking
http://www.visiblethinkingpz.
org/VisibleThinking_html_files/03_ThinkingRoutines/03c_Core_routines/SeeThinkWonder/SeeThinkWonder_Routine.html
Riley, Susan. Artful Journaling Lesson Plans. Education Closet. February 2, 2011
http://educationcloset.com/2011/02/02/artful-journaling-lesson-plans-education-closet/
Team Six: 6 Word Memoirs. http://sixwordmemoirs.com/about/about-six/
Wood, Julie. Web Sitings: Virtual Art, Real Learning. Scholastic.
http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/article/web-sitings-virtual-art-real-learning

Drama:

DBI Network: Drama-Based Instruction. Retrieved March 26, 2016. http://www.utexas.edu/cofa/dbi/node/19

Gidcumb-DeFrang, Brianne. Integrating Drama in the Elementary Classroom: Where Do I Start? Education Closet. Auguest 1, 2014 .http:
//educationcloset.com/2014/08/01/integrating-drama-in-the-elementary-classroom-where-do-i-start/
Riley, Susan. Actors Toolbox Steps. Education Closet. December 14, 2014.
http://educationcloset.com/2010/12/14/actors-toolbox-steps/
Riley, Susan. Keep the Drama Coming! Education Closet. May 10, 2011.
http://educationcloset.com/2011/05/10/keep-the-drama-coming/

Music:

Hopkins, Gary. A Stomping Good Time. Education World. March 9, 2015.

http://www.educationworld.com/a_lesson/03/lp303-02.shtml

Riley, Susan. Arts Integration Technique-Call and Response. Education Closet. July 20, 2012.
http://educationcloset.com/2012/07/20/arts-integration-technique-call-and-response/
Riley, Susan. The Improvisation Frame: A Music Arts Integration Strategy. Education Closet. June 27, 2013.
http://educationcloset.com/2013/06/27/the-improvisation-frame-a-music-arts-integration-strategy/

Dance:

Hartley, Susan. Parts of Speech and Dance. Wake County Public Schools.
http://www.ncpublicschools.org/curriculum/artsed/resources/handbook/dance/27integration#parts
Lin Hannum, Angelina. Geometry in Dance. Arts Integration Solutions. December 2012.
http://educationcloset.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/mirroring-technique.pdf