Wednesday, April 13, 2011

In the Classroom part 3 (Art/Music)

Hello,
                My name is Wintermute, and this is Dumbr, a blog of my time spent in Korea and some of my teaching methodologies. Today we are going to be talking about ways to handle your music and art classes. I understand that not all of you are singers and few are artist, so hopefully this will give you a few ideas of what to do in class.

Music:

                If you are like me your vocal talent can be compared to the sound of a cat stuck in a lawn mower. This can be very problematic as you could be teaching music class twice a week or more.  Obviously you are going to be using a radio and CD, but honestly that’s not enough to get your kids involved and makes it difficult on them to learn the words. The more into you get, the more into they will get.  You just kind of have to remind yourself you are doing it for the kids, they don’t care if you can’t sing or what you sound like, it’s just for fun.

                A few good tips: I put my music class at the very end of the day, before home time, it was the shortest period in the day and the kids were so tired most just slept through it anyway. I would waste a lot of time talking about what songs we would sing and have them tell me about the songs. Also you don’t have to sing every day, instead give them some large paper to draw with. Pick a song and have them draw out images of that song. This is actually a really good idea because it allows you to see if your kids comprehend the lyrics. It’s one thing for them to spout out random words in any given order, but can they comprehend them and understand what the song is talking about? Every teacher had their own method to test song comprehension, mine was drawing.

Art:

                Sad to say, I’m good at art. But that does not mean I want to overdo it every time art class comes up. Very rarely I had time to actually sit down and prepare a class, remember I had 30 minutes to plan 9 hours of class and do all of my school work like report cards, schedules, etc etc. So I made up a lot of simple projects you can do on the fly with little to no planning. Things like making a starry sky by taking a black piece of paper and a water bottle, fill it up with water and a little white paint, and then squirt the paper. I got some toy cars and paint, and let the kids roll the cars around on paper making paint streaks. You can get some of that floam stuff; it’s really cheap and not messy.  I did tie-dye with my kids, the Koreans did not approve, but the kids sure loved it. Point is it’s easy to come up with simple projects with little time on the clock. Look around and see what you got. Also there are plenty of sites to help with this sort of thing.

I could start a whole new blog on all of the art projects you can do. The point I’m trying to make is you don’t have to be some amazing artist or that creative, and you don’t even need a lot of time.  I hope all of this info helps you plan out better classes for your students and I will see you all tomorrow.

Your Teacher,
Wintermute

55 comments:

  1. I've always been good at art, i'm kinda creative sometimes. But the class was too fun for me to bother so i was average :)

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  2. You thought of some great art projects with very little time to prepare.

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  3. please could you write more on some simple art projects for kids? great blog btw

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  4. You sure have have interest in the students you teach since you actually go trough the trouble of preparing yourself and maximizing your time which in todays times is a REAL VIRTUE


    KUDOS my friend keep up the good work

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  5. You explained my vocal talent quite well

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  6. Another great post! keep up the good blogging!

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  7. I found the drawing to music idea fascinating. I'm sure you must be getting a lot of interesting pieces of art from your students

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  8. This was really educational! Thanks for the info!
    Followed! Please check out my blog too!

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  9. i think music is the best way to relax students.

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  10. You are a very good teacher, I would like to have your class :)

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  11. Very informative. I'm an education major in college myself, and it's cool to hear from other people in the field!

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  12. I don't teach any kind of classes or anything, but I think I'm going to forward this to my old Japanese teacher that I keep in contact with. It seems like something she'd be interested in.

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  13. Hispanic and Asian culture, just amazing.

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  14. I assume the school wants you to do Western Art and music, right?

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  15. theres no restrictions on the art, but the songs should be in English.

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  16. Music is what I need to keep my sanity.

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  17. sounds good, you should post some of your art or student art

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  18. Looks like you're a good teacher :P

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  19. I've always wanted to be abroad. Even better that your doing something good while your there as well.

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  20. That drawing the music is a good trick. I would guess it doesn't even feel like school.

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  21. Man there needs to be more teachers like you. My education in my school of my early years had no imagination. You bring that to the classroom!

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  22. Two subjects I wish I'd paid more attention to in school. And two subjects that really suffer, at least in america.

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  23. The idea of drawing out music seems like it would really help to see what a person is like, might use this later on, thanks for the inspiration.

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  24. awesome teacher as always :) yes an art blog why not

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  25. good ideas, im pretty good at art/music. I also can't sing to save my life, but i play instruments.

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  26. awww im sure you have a great voice :)

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  27. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  28. You sound like a very fun teacher :D

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  29. I wish my teacher had done some of this stuff back in the day.

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  30. I share your lack of vocal skills. Glad you're able to compensate however!

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  31. thank you sensai. :)

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  32. I don't necessarily want to become a teacher, but this applies to everyone, be excited and into it, otherwise people do catch on, and I can see how that would cause problems in class

    btw korean here

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  33. why didn't they approve tie dye? O_o

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  34. Great post, good advice! Thank you!

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  35. your teaching methods are so brilliant

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  36. Love these posts, keep em coming!

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  37. You sound like a great teacher.

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  38. It's great to end the day with some nice music.

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  39. brilliant, keep it up, i wish i was there.

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  40. the starry sky sounds like a great plan, nice one ha

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  41. Really good post man. I like the idea of making the kids draw the songs.

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  42. why werent you my music teacher :<

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