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Art integration means that the arts are incorporated into general classroom lessons and integrated with content. This is different than the arts being explicitly taught outside of the general classroom. I see this a lot in the child care center I work in. Generally I teach in the infant/toddler room but I've spent some time in the older rooms as well. In the older room, I see lots and lots of art, singing, and moving. It is a part of almost everything that they do but they are also learning content along with it. I think it is important for students to experience this because it serves as a way of expression. In my practicum this semester, I also observed an example of art integration during a writing lesson in my 4th grade classroom. Their teacher lead them through a lesson that focused on poetry and writing. The students listened to many forms of poetry and then watched and listened to a familiar music video that related to the subject of the poems. All of the students sang along while paying close attention to the words and meaning so that they were able to complete their assignments. The students loved this. They were all singing, dancing and had smiles on their faces. I honestly think this was one of their favorite parts of the day.

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Arts integration for today's elementary classrooms is an important element to utilize. It involves the student demonstrating their understanding of a subject through art and expression. This can be visual media, drawings, singing, etc. Offering multiple means of expression when assess a student is a key to a student's success because they can pick the mode that fits them best. From the Whitlin and Moench article, it is clear that arts integration brings out a students creativity and imagination. Allowing arts integration also exposes opportunities for improvement and allows students to grow in their abilities. The study done by Whitlin and Moench seemed to produce many positive benefits to exposing students to art integration. I hope to incorporate it into my future classroom.

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My view regarding arts integration echoes the discussions in the Chemi, Okeefe, and Whitin articles. It seems that the term "arts" is growing more significance in the education field because researchers and educators are realizing the deep, long-term benefits of incorporating arts into instruction/curriculum. I really liked the Whitin article specifically because it talked about the importance of making instruction meaningful to students, not only for the sake of developing an appreciation for the arts, but also for the growth of learning in other content areas. So I agree with the articles' perspective that art, in whatever form, belongs in education and it shouldn't be detached or treated as if it requires a certain type of personality to appreciate it and interact with it.

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To me, art integration means including visual arts and music in as much of the daily routines in an elementary school as possible. I work in a child center, and arts integration makes up a lot of our day. We are constantly singing songs, doing movement, and creating art projects that are structured while others allow children to do the project how they want. I see great benefit from integrating this material for my students. After completing todays readings, arts integration in today's elementary classroom to me means going to specials to have these subjects. It would be ideal for teachers to incorporate songs and art projects into the curriculum, but most teachers are focused on hitting the common core standards. In the younger grades, visual arts and art projects are very common for these grade, but in 4th and 5th grade, you rarely see students having time to work on an art project in the classroom. I think elementary schools should work on integrating the arts more into the general classrooms because there is evidence that it helps students learn.

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In todays classroom, arts integration is a means for students to learn and to express themselves in the classroom. Arts integration is beneficial in the classroom for so many reasons, but to just name a few, it helps get all students involved, helps get the class up and moving, and makes learning much more interactive and enjoyable. As a wanna-be kindergarten teacher, arts integration means a lot to me. The best way to keep my class engaged and having fun is going to be teaching through the arts, with a lot of music and song in the classroom.

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Integrating art in the classroom means to incorporate different techniques of art to the students for to learn with. Having different things in the classroom (music, videos, etc.) allows students to learn in effective ways. It helps students who learn better by watching, actively engaging, and writing by allowing them to express themselves. Every student learns differently and having the teacher creatively teach them hard concepts in different ways may get their students to understand in ways they didn't know they could learn it. Art integration should be a fun way for students to learn and be engaging. Keeping lessons simple and easy to follow helps the teacher and students have a successful lesson.

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In today's elementary classroom, art integration means to include different types of art in the classroom for lessons to be taught. Using visual media, song, and art helps students to learn in new and efficient ways. They are able to visually see lessons, as well as use enactive learning in song and being able to express themselves in their assignments. The reading mentioned how using collages, digital media, sketches, and song have been very beneficial to learning in the classroom. To me, arts integration means that students are able to learn in creative ways where they are actually having fun. Typical lessons can be very boring to students. Art integration allows students to get on their feet, be creative, and let their energy out while learning at the same time. I want my classroom to be this kind of environment.

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According to the reading art integration means incorporating art into your lessons in a way for students to express themselves in a way they normally wouldn't. In today's classroom incorporating art is so crucial. Often enough it is overlooked and saved till students go to their art class or their music class and teachers don't realize its something that can be included into everyday lessons. Incorporating music or art into a lesson allows for the students who learn better in those environments to feel like they have a place. It almost connects the dots for some students. If art and music are continued to be kept out of the classroom and kept completely separate some students won't realize just how important it is. Not to mention how fun it can be, and offers an outlet for creativity.

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The word artfulness stuck out to me in this weeks reading. According to Chemi artfulness is, "a cognitive and emotional response to stimuli that individuals experience as situated within artistic or art-based environments that they share with others," (2014, p. 373). I believe that this goes hand in hand with art integration. To me, and what I have read, I believe art integration is the act of incorporating art into the main stream classroom. It is using art to teach other subjects (e.g. math, science, social studies, etc.). Chemi explains in his definition of artfulness that using art is a cognitive and emotional response to stimuli. To me this means that art can enhance our learning through emotions and creativity, and it can increase our cognitive learning. I believe art integration is important in classrooms today because I have seem it used in a positive and productive way. I have worked with a woman who uses art in almost all of her lessons, and I have seen the amount of learning that her students are doing; the best part of it is that they don't even realize they are learning so much because they are having fun. Art integration also allows for creativity and unquietness!

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Art integration is defined by one article as a  high quality incorporation of different arts forms in the core curriculum (Chemi, 2014, p.371)  in today's classroom it has looked like an "add on" to the classroom. It is often the individual teacher who will prioritize arts integration, but unfortunately not the school as a whole. Arts integration allows for music, dance, and song to be incorporated into lessons in math, language arts, science, and reading, for examples.Those who advocate for higher levels of arts integration argue that by "connecting learning across disciplines results in increased motivation to learn and deeper understandings"(Keefe, 2016, p.13)
When I reflect on my own schooling, I know that the arts and the curriculum of the "regular" classroom, felt very separate. We had designated times for "specials" like art and music. I think that my Music and art teachers all did an excellent job of integrating other subjects into their lessons, but few of core teachers used arts integration into their lessons. As someone who loves music and values the role it has played in my life, I feel I will push to see arts integrated in my classroom, as well as in my school. Not only do the arts have educational benefits, but they have emotional and cultural benefits, and encourages creativity that can not be taught through the core disciplines of learning.

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According to this week's readings, art integration is when the arts are incorporated into the core curriculum. Art integration allows for students to experience the curriculum in a more exciting, nice, and enjoyable way (such as whip cream on a pie). I really like the idea of arts integration because it engages each student in a different way and may lead students to express and interest that they may not have been aware of at first. For example, incorporating music in the classroom allows for students with limited music education exposure the opportunity to enjoy this fun and different type of learning that they normally wouldn't experience. I will definitely use art integration in my classroom as I find it extremely important to keep a classroom engaging and different from others.

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According to the readings, art integration means that teachers incorporate the arts in their lessons to allow students to express themselves and ideas in any way, while focusing on the content area the teacher is trying to teacher. This helps students develop critical thinking and give reasoning as to why they do things the way they do or why they came up with that answer.
I remember when I was in school as early as elementary that I joined the orchestra and played the violin and this was the best decision I have made. I was also in the marching band and did choral. Having this musical experiences helped me focus in class because it was my time to get stress free. I feel as a future educator it is important to incorporate the arts into lessons because students learn through that and it is easy to express themselves in a way they could not before. I know some songs could be cheesy to us adults, but I still remember the quadratic formula from high school because it is the tune to pop goes the weasel.

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Art integration means integrating art in an academic way that allows students to express themselves, their thoughts, and their ideas through art. Art in the classroom is often used in a very generic and basic way. Teachers will have students draw pictures or listen to music. I believe that integrating art should be natural and can be applied to everything. Instead of reading a book, teachers could have students take on roles and read a script. The children I nanny for have told me that their teachers will play different genres and music from different cultures. I find this to be very beneficial and productive. In my future classroom I would like to make art an option at all times bu giving students options. An example of this could be giving students the option to write an essay, a poem, a script and act it out or a song. This gives students with different backgrounds and interests the opportunity to express themselves. Art integration to me is allowing students to express themselves in a way that best fits them!

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Arts integration is that teachers will effectively use arts in the curriculum being taught. Teachers will use arts as a tool to teach students about expressing themselves, and to use it as a support in the classroom for learning. Arts can do so much for students and how they learn different things, that is why it is important to implement arts in the classroom. It is explained that teachers today often just use music as background noise to soothe students or as a form of classroom management and as this may work, it is important that teachers to use music and other arts in the curriculum as well. From my personal experience of arts integration, some of the concepts I remember the most are those that had songs to go along with it. When I was in middle school, we were taught a song with the lyrics being the quadratic formula, and to this day I can sing the entire song and write out what the quadratic formula is. Or, when I was in 4th grade we put on a play about the history of Colorado, we made shirts with all the Colorado facts on it and we learned songs that taught us about different historical events that took place in Colorado. Because of the arts, I remember these concepts a lot better than I remember other things that did not involve the arts in some way.

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Arts integration is very important in schools. In another text that we read, it mentioned that music was a part of a child development naturally. Teachers use the arts in the classroom, but it is sort of at a bare minimum. In today's classroom, teachers use music as background noise, which I think is nice because it sort of relaxes students and makes the environment more pleasant to be in, however, music should incorporated in a more academic way rather than a relaxation tool. When I was in elementary school, I learned songs about the water cycle, and I have continued to use it and teach it because it is a good way to use the arts in an academic way. I also remember using music when learning mean, median, and mode and still use those strategies when doing math. I hope to implement this in my future classroom as it really benefited me. Art can also be used in may different subjects to help students express themselves or show others what they have learned through design. Using art and music in the classroom uses higher order thinking skills to take in information. Students could create a piece of work using music or art to show what they know. In the readings, it talked about how some teachers do not feel like they know that much about the arts and so they just choose not utilize them, but it is so easy to learn as most schools have an art teacher and music teacher that could give some great ideas to incorporate the arts.

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According to this week's reading, "arts integration" in today's elementary classroom is described as an educational approach that allows students to express their learning through a form of art, which encourages their critical thinking of a content area. However, in today's elementary classrooms, there is a lack of an arts integrated approach; instead, there is often an explicit approach and instruction for art subjects (e.g. art class, music class, dance class, etc.).

To me, "arts integration" means a teacher is implementing a curriculum that encourages students to learn through and with different modes of art (e.g. dancing, painting, singing, etc.). In addition, the curriculum integrates different modes of arts into other content areas to enhance students' performance and understandings.

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Art integration means that the teacher successfully implements the curriculum while also focusing on art in order to help students learn self expression and gain artistic qualities. In today's classroom, most elementary teachers implement music into the classroom by exposure such as background music or a management tool. Teachers need to integrate art into the curriculum- they need to allow students to create their own music and experience learning with the aid of art. O'Keef found that elementary teachers simply do not feel confident or prepared when using these concepts to teach ideas. The author also found that the elementary teachers in the study would not collaborate with teachers of the arts, even though these teachers were available at their school. Teachers must do their own research to find the best way to utilize these learning methods to reach all learners. For example when I learned about multiplication, my teacher taught us a dance and song to go with each number. To this day, I still sing those songs when I am doing mental math. In history, we learned global songs and dances that we performed for the other grades in middle school. Everything I learned through music and art I retain much better than what I learned without artistic aid.

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According to the reading, "The artful teacher" arts integration means that the teacher successfully implements the curriculum while also focusing on art, to cultivate students self-expression and have cognitive and educational output that also pays attention to artistic qualities (Chemi, 381). This doesn't mean just playing songs or calming background music. It means teaching about art during history or playing music that has a pattern when learning about patterns in math, as a few examples.

To me arts integration means that the general education teacher integrates the arts,-art, music, dance etc into their everyday curriculum and it isn't just a special students go to a few days a week. I always enjoyed when the arts were integrated into my classes. There are songs that I learned in 1st grade that I still remember as well as a chant about mean, median and mode that I still remember and have used to this day. I think if more of my schooling integrated art, music and dance then my learning would have been more meaningful and memorable.

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My main takeaways from this week's readings were that teachers in today's elementary classrooms mostly use the arts through music, having students memorize facts through catchy songs or relaxing mood by playing background music. Art is not used as we learn in our music class, where students get to learn concepts through making their own music or songs. In the article, A Survey of the Music Integration Practices of North Dakota Elementary Classroom Teachers, O'Keef explores why this may be the case and why teachers do not think outside the box when integrating the arts into instruction, as Chemi suggests. O'Keef found that elementary teachers simply do not feel confident or prepared when using these concepts to teach ideas. The author also found that the elementary teachers in the study would not collaborate with teachers of the arts, even though these teachers were available at their school. In order for arts to be more fully integrated into instruction, teachers must do research and learn more about how they can effectively utilize arts to reach diverse learners.

I have always loved learning ideas through music. My mom helped me study for tests by coming up with song parodies that would help me memorize information. Although this may be true, I believe that integrating arts into the curriculum is more than just using music to memorize content. I believe that arts integration is looking at paintings from times in history and having students find symbols and learn more about why an author made certain artistic choices. I believe that arts integration involves learning about culture through dance, or creating a piece of art that portrays the theme of a poem. As a teacher, I will try to teach my students through the arts because I know it will reach learners in my classroom who do not typically get the chance to learn in this way.

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In the article, The Artful Teacher: A Conceptual Model for Arts Integration in Schools, arts integration is defined as "a high quality incorporation of different arts forms in the core curriculum" (Chemi 371). I really liked how this article brought about the role of the teacher as the artist, as the teacher can create new ways for the students to explore the material that they are learning. Many teachers focus great amounts of effort on covering as much of the material as they possibly can in a given year, which causes strain on both them and the students as well. The arts integration approach requires a shift in thinking, but allows students to critically examine and reflect upon their own work. However, one particular idea from the article really stuck out to me, "art doesn't need to be precise and stop when it stops" (380). The amazing thing about art is that there are no right or wrong answers, and the earlier students are exposed to this regularly, the better they will be able to develop the skill of self-reflection.

I think of arts integration as providing each student the opportunity to engage in creative endeavors and discover their interests. Before taking this class, I really only thought of arts integration as something that was completely separate from the general education classroom. However, this cannot be a stand alone subject, as it does not allow students to connect the material they are learning with their own personal experiences. I believe that the key to success is that students not only understand what they are learning, but are able to make direct connections with it.

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According to the readings, "arts integration" in today's elementary classroom means the integration of visual, spatial, linguistic, etc., aspects in the classroom that build on and deepen meaning of curriculum for the students. This can be done by bringing and encouraging multimodal literacies into the classroom or through a number of other ways. In the reading, "The Artful Teacher: A Conceptual Model for Arts Integration in Schools," the author writes about innovation in the classroom through craftwork and woodwork. I never thought of this education as typical "arts integration" for some reason, but now thinking about this, I do not know why I ever doubted it - as this uses creative and innovative thinking just as much as music or art can. I enjoyed this description of arts integration in "The Artful Teacher: A Conceptual Model for Arts Integration in Schools," "Art or art education is whipped cream on the school’s pie. As whipped cream, art has what makes teaching and learning delicious, appealing, and nicer. The metaphor also has a downside: Whipped cream is indeed very tasty, but it is also very fattening, so perhaps it should be omitted from a truly healthy diet." This quote stood out to me because of it's metaphorical comparison to art in the classroom and how, like anything else, arts integration in moderation is most likely best for the students and teacher.

I also think of today's arts integration in the classroom as exposing each student to creativity, whether that be through music, art, writing, etc. When I think of "arts integration" in the elementary classroom, I often look back on my elementary experience where the "arts" simply meant art class and music class to me. After higher education and more experience in the classroom through the eyes of a teacher, I consider the "arts" to be whatever can be used to encourage and create creative, open, innovative and higher thinking for each and every student.

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Art integration in today's classroom is very different than what I was used to. Back when I was in elementary and middle school we had a whole block of class twice a week dedicated to art. We would learn the history of art and different concepts of art. But it is different around the world. For example, in Denmark art is seen as an "add-on". That means that there is no direct art instruction but it is the teachers choice on whether or not to integrate art with other subjects.

Personally I think that art and music are very similar in the fact that you can incorporate both of these subjects with any other subject. Also by incorporating art and music in other subjects, you are giving the kids a chance to not only learn, but have fun while learning.