Enhance the learning experience by integrating the performing arts Research documents that the arts boost learning, build confidence, and motivate students to participate in class. How do we keep the performing arts alive in this era of increased accountability and decreased funding? Rekha S. Rajan sets the stage for a creative and practical solution with detailed, concrete examples of how to integrate the performing arts into math, science, social studies, and language arts. Key features include: Step-by-step examples of how to include the performing arts in all aspects of the curriculum Ways to impact students′ learning in the cognitive, social, and artistic domains Activities that can be implemented immediately and easily Detailed lesson plans connected to the National Standards for Arts Education, National Standards for Early Childhood and Elementary Education, and Common Core Standards for Math and Language Arts Students in grades K-5 need creative venues that encourage self-confidence, self-expression, and collaboration. The performing arts provide opportunities to build personal and social skills that are an integral component of learning and development. This accessible resource provides all teachers with the tools to integrate the performing arts throughout their curriculum.

This practical resource emphasizes the special contribution that visual art, drama, music, and dance can make to student literacy and understanding of content area reading assignments. Focusing on those areas where students tend to struggle, this book helps K—5 teachers provide an age-appropriate curriculum that is accessible to an increasingly diverse student population but does not ignore other important aspects of healthy human development. Without detracting from the rigor of a demanding curriculum, Brouillette demonstrates how arts integration allows students to engage with concepts on their own developmental level. Each chapter focuses on a skill set that is fundamental to literacy development, suggests age-appropriate arts integration activities that will build that skill, and offers guidance for fostering a sense of community. “A thoughtful look into issues surrounding arts integration as a viable strategy for increasing students’ achievement and access to higher education and career pathways.” —Kristen Greer-Paglia, CEO, P.S. ARTS “An excellent guide to teachers aspiring to integrate the arts into their curriculum, it is both a delightful and useful read!” —Liora Bresler, University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana

Enhance the learning experience by integrating the performing arts Research documents that the performing arts boost learning, build confidence, and motivate students to participate in class. How do we leverage these benefits in the current age of accountability? Rekha S. Rajan offers a practical solution with standards-aligned, concrete examples that show how to integrate the performing arts into math, science, social studies, and language arts. Key features include: Step-by-step examples of how to include the performing arts in all aspects of the curriculum Ways to impact students' learning in the cognitive, social, and artistic domains Activities that can be implemented immediately and easily Standards-based lesson plans

Musical Theater in Schools: Purpose, Process, and Performance is a comprehensive resource for general classroom teachers, music and drama educators. The book is the first of its kind to provide strategies for including musical theater across the K-12 curriculum, inviting teachers and arts specialists to utilize musical theater as an interdisciplinary art form within their own classrooms, or as collaborative projects throughout the school community. Typically relegated to after-school activities, musical theater can have a strong place both as an avenue for performance, creativity, and self-expression, or as a pathway for student learning about academic subjects. Drawing upon musical theater terminology, the book is organized into three distinct acts. The first section gives an overview of how this popular art form developed and how its stories reflect our culture and community, with descriptions of musical theater as a profession for adults, and for children. This section also discusses musical theater's compromised position within the arts, often relegated to theater departments even though repertoire and songs are available to music teachers, and argues for musicals as a form of interdisciplinary education. The second section outlines ways of integrating musical theater into the curriculum with considerations for the National Core Arts Standards. The third section provides suggestions for auditions, casting, rehearsing, and presenting a complete production, with a specific focus on student-centered performances. Based on the author's own experiences as a professional musical theater performer, coupled with teaching and research in classroom settings, the book reasons that you do not have to be a Broadway star to teach or perform musical theater. This unique and innovative book supports educators through the process of bringing musical theater into the biggest and most important performance space - the classroom stage.

Musical theater is a dynamic, collaborative art form, which encompasses music, theater, dance, and the visual arts. Traditionally associated with adult performers, musicals also have roles designated specifically for children. How then does involvement in musical theater support children’s learning through the performing arts? What do children value from their musical theater experiences and how do these experiences influence children’s personal, social, and artistic lives? Based on a decade of research, this book explores these questions through children’s participation as singers, actors, and dancers, in school-based, community, and professional musical theater. By valuing children’s voices as important in understanding experience, Rajan constructs a framework of musical theater participation, and applies broader educational implications to highlight the unique characteristics of musical theater in children’s lives.

A drama/theatre curriculum designed to help students become more aware of themselves and their world, and through that awareness to develop critical-thinking and problem-solving skills in all curriculum areas. Each of the six levels has 30 sequential lessons.

This book offers a creative and practical guide for K-6 teachers on how to effectively integrate movement into the curriculum to increase student engagement, deepen learning, improve retention, and get kids moving during the school day. Chapters offer concrete ideas for integrating creative movement and theater into subjects such as math, science, literacy, and social studies. Drawing on two decades of experience, Dr. Becker outlines key skills, offers rich examples, and provides adaptable and flexible classroom tested lesson plans that align with Common Core Standards, the NGSS, C3 Social Studies Standards, and the National Core Arts Standards. Activities are grounded in arts integration, which is steadily gaining interest in school reform as an effective teaching strategy that increases student outcomes academically and socially—particularly effective for students who have traditionally been marginalized. This book will benefit practicing educators who want to invigorate their practice, preservice teachers who want to expand their toolkit, and school leaders looking to employ policies that support movement and arts during the school day. Jump in and get your kids Learning Through Movement and see how active and engaging learning can be!

This book is designed to assist pre-service and in-service classroom teachers in weaving music, visual arts, drama, and movement into the elementary/middle school curriculum in order to stimulate the learning process, enrich other subject areas, and provide opportunities for creative expression and self-fulfillment. By providing the basic tools and activities that teachers will need, Gelineau helps teachers gains confidence in using the arts in the their elementary classrooms. The content of the book is informed by the National Standards for the Arts.

Do you want to . . . • create a rich and vibrant classroom environment? • stimulate your students’ minds in multiple ways? • transform your teaching through incorporating the arts in your mathematics and science curriculums? Then Dance Integration: 36 Dance Lesson Plans for Science and Mathematics is just the book for you! The dance lesson plans in this groundbreaking book infuse creativity in mathematics and science content. Students will gain a wealth of critical knowledge, deepen their critical-thinking skills, and learn to collaborate and communicate effectively. Written for K-5 teachers who are looking for creative ways to teach the standards, Dance Integration will help you bring your mathematics and science content to life as you guide your students to create original choreography in mathematics and science and perform it for one another. In doing so, you will help spark new ideas for your students out of those two curriculums —no more same-old same-old! And in the freshness of these new ideas, students will increase comfort in performing in front of one another and discussing performances while deepening their understanding of the core content through their kinesthetic experiences. The creative-thinking skills that you will teach through these lesson plans and the innovative learning that dance provides are what set this book apart from all others in the field. Dance Integration was extensively field-tested by authors Karen Kaufmann and Jordan Dehline. The book contains these features: • Instructions on developing modules integrating mathematics and science • Ready-to-use lesson plans that classroom teachers, physical education teachers, dance educators, and dance specialists can use in teaching integrated content in mathematics and science • Tried-and-true methods for connecting to 21st-century learning standards and integrating dance into K-5 curriculums This book, which will help you assess learning equally in dance, science, and mathematics, is organized in three parts: • Part I introduces the role of dance in education; defines dance integration; and describes the uses, benefits, and effects of dance when used in tandem with another content area. • Part II offers dance and mathematics lessons that parallel the common core standards for mathematics. • Part III presents dance and science learning activities in physical science, life science, earth and space sciences, investigation, experimentation, and technology. Each lesson plan includes a warm-up, a developmental progression of activities, and formative and summative assessments and reflections. The progressions help students explore, experiment, create, and perform their understanding of the content. The plans are written in a conversational narrative and include additional notes for teachers. Each lesson explores an essential question relevant to the discipline and may be taught in sequence or as a stand-alone lesson. Yes, Dance Integration will help you meet important standards: • Common Core State Standards for Mathematics • Next Generation Science Standards • Standards for Learning and Teaching Dance in the Arts More important, this book provides you with a personal aesthetic realm in your classroom that is not part of any other school experience. It will help you bring joy and excitement into your classroom. And it will help you awaken a community of active and eager learners. Isn’t that what education is all about?

A clear introduction for the teaching of language and communication.