K-12
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American History: Music Tells Our Story
90 minutes to 2 day SessionsK-12What do African American musical traditions tell us about African American culture? What were the values of these people in early America, and how did their values serve them? What are the values of our culture today, and how do these current day values serve us in our own search for meaning? African American music, having come out of the struggle with slavery and civil rights, carries a unique view of the people themselves. We will use this musical tradition to explore this history, utilizing drum circles, spirituals, and other elements to illuminate our study. This is an example of integrated curriculum that will cross the disciplines of music, math, science, language arts and social studies. Additionally, this study gives weight and value to the many contributions and inherent value in African American culture, supporting our efforts to teach from a more diverse perspective.
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Arts Integration in Action
90 minutes to full day sessionsK-8This is an overview workshop of structures that may be used to provide arts-based expressions of understanding in all curricular areas. The teachers’ ability to reach students of varied learning styles and capabilities will be enhanced, while the divergent thinking required for students to make meaning in multiple ways will be promoted through the implementation of these ideas. This work is accessible for all types of teachers, and will provide assessment tools suited to these experiential modes of learning.
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Creative Differentiation
1 hour to 6 hour SessionsAllDifferentiation is the ongoing challenge of every classroom teacher. This workshop will provide creativity-based mechanisms to add to your differentiation toolbox, allowing for students with a wider range of learning styles to successfully understand and express their understandings in your classroom.
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Creative Strategies for Building Fluency and Literacy
1 to 4 hour sessionsK-8
Literacy is a basic building block of all learning, and for students that struggle in this area, often all of schooling is frustrating and difficult. In this workshop, we will move literacy goals into the realms of sound and rhythm, making them accessible to many of these struggling learners. Building on rhythmic fluency can support fluency in reading, poetry, and writing, and build a bridge to more traditional forms of expression for these students. -
Creative Structures for Teaching Science
90 minutes to 3 hoursK-8Creative, critical thinking is the hallmark of good education. This workshop will focus on simple ways to add creative structures to your current science teaching stategies. This is experientially based work promotes complex thinking while adding lots of creative fun to your classroom!
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Creative Structures in the Curriculum
Any lengthK-8Creative, critical thinking is the hallmark of good education. This workshop will focus on simple ways to add creative structures to your current planning. This is experientially based work that can be used in multiple curricular areas. Promote complex thinking while adding lots of creative fun to your classroom!
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Cultures and Their Symbols
60 minute to 3 hour SessionsK-8This workshop, for Middle School educators, focuses on symbols as the “definers” of culture. We will take a global look at the use of symbols, manipulate symbolic systems, and create our own tools with different symbolic systems. This workshop is an example of thematic, integrated study that crosses curricular boundaries, and allows us to define ourselves within the global community.
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Global Arts in the Early Childhood Classroom
Any lengthEarly ChildhoodWorld cultures have much to offer the Early Childhood classroom. We will learn to use songs and games from all over the world to support emergent literacy and developmental domains, as well as to serve specific classroom functions. These joyous games that children have played for hundreds of years support brain function in ways that our technological generation of children do not experience, while enriching our experience of ourselves as members of the wider global community.
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Global Studies Through World Arts
Any lengthK-12Humans have long used the arts – stories, games, music, and dance, to pass on those values and traditions most treasured by the community. In this workshop, we use these artifacts to experience the spirit of the people from which they came, to enhance our own understanding of those studied in our social studies curriculum, and to build a sense of our own place as part of the larger world community.
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Movement and Sound-Based Approaches to the Early Childhood Curriculum
1 to 3 hour SessionsEarly ChildhoodMovement and sound use the child’s natural affinities to develop the physical and mental capacities needed for educational and life challenges. In this workshop, we’ll explore devices and structures that playfully engage the young child in this way, and are accessible to all early childhood educators.
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Singing to Learn: A Multicultural Approach to Early Childhood Curriculum
3 hoursEarly ChildhoodThis workshop was developed in association with the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
World cultures have much to offer the Early Childhood classroom. We will learn to use songs and games from all over the world to support emergent literacy and developmental domains, as well as to serve specific classroom functions. These joyous games that children have played for hundreds of years support brain function in ways that our technological generation of children do not experience, while enriching our experience of ourselves as members of the wider global community.
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Tellin' Tales: Storytelling and Literacy
90 minute to 6 hour SessionsAllIn this workshop, we’ll work together to increase the effectiveness of stories in the curriculum. We’ll use “story weaving” techniques to enhance creativity and understanding in writing, social studies, math, drama, and visual art. Assessment tools will be included, as well as techniques for accommodating varying entry points.
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Tellin' Tales: Taking Stories to the Next Level in the Early Childhood Classroom
3 hoursEarly ChildhoodThis workshop was developed in association with the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
Are you looking for new ways to share stories in the classroom so students are actively engaged? In this workshop, discover how to add participatory techniques, such as sounds, rhymes, chants, songs and movement, to stories so that students are active contributors to the story experience. These strategies help develop your storytelling skills that support your efforts to target a range of learning objectives, including emergent literacy social, motor, and cognitive development in the early childhood classroom.
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The Day-To-Day Global Classroom
1 hour to six hour sessionsK-8
This workshop will focus on the small – Small and immediate ways to bring global elements into the classroom. Transitional games, math games, science stories, and many more ideas for pulling world cultures into the daily workings of the classroom. The focus will be not on changing how you teach, but simply on supplementing what you are already teaching with global resources that are readily accessible to every classroom teacher.