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Showing posts with label Visual Arts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Visual Arts. Show all posts

POPS: More Opportunities to Refine Arts Education During Summertime


Summer break is when many educators think about, collaborate, improve, and refine their plans for the upcoming school year. Professional Outreach Programs in the Schools (POPS) can provide the needed resources to integrate the arts into those plans. 

POPS is managed by the Utah State Board of Education and sponsored by the Utah State Legislature. The program brings arts education and professional artists to educators and schools for free or subsidized costs. Read on to discover different and accessible ways to integrate dance and visual arts into your classroom, all available through POPS.

Ballet West

Ballet West has a variety of virtual learning opportunities available on its website for educators and students. The student in-theater presentation of Snow White, along with Getting the Pointe Workshops and study guides, helps viewers connect to the arts through an engaging and entertaining presentation of this classic fairy tale. 

The virtual presentation of the Ballet West for Children lecture demonstration Sleeping Beauty provides a broad scope of information about ballet and dance as art forms and professions. This demonstration also provides access to a study guide as well as hands-on Getting the Pointe workshops to enhance the experience.

I CAN DO classes are available for students and teachers who want to get up and move. These short lessons cover a wide variety of core curriculum concepts and are appropriate for multi-grade levels and ages. Happily, these classes can be viewed online multiple times to help improve skills and comprehension.

All of these experiences address the Utah State Core Curriculum, life skills development, and career and college readiness concepts. For more information about all of Ballet West’s virtual educational offerings, please visit https://balletwest.org/outreach.


Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art

Using art from the museum’s collection, Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art’s educators have created grade-specific online learning modules that address different themes. The modules prompt students to create their own artwork. Each workshop fulfills different core learning standards, including science, fine arts, and social studies. 

The museum’s Junior Curators experience is now offered online and will soon be joined by an online Elementary Curators experience. As participants go behind the scenes at NEHMA, curators will explore different ways to think about art and learn about art collection, displaying art, and creating exhibitions. These programs are well adapted to both home and classroom learning and can be undertaken individually or as class projects.  

Alongside the new digital tours of five exhibitions at NEHMA, which are available to everyone on the website, there is a High School Digital Tour Activity, which guides students through the galleries, including prompts for further consideration of the artworks on display and response activities that can be done at home or in a classroom. 
 
Repertory Dance Theatre 

Repertory Dance Theatre has an expanded blog on its website that includes lesson plans, career mentorship, videos of works from RDT's historical and contemporary library, and also hour-long performances of VOYAGE, RDT's in-school assembly, and MOSAIC, a tapestry of music and movement from around the world. Teachers of grades K-12 have the opportunity to use the movement lesson plans, which include core subjects, such as science, math, and language arts. Also included are folk dances, technique warm-ups, ballroom, jazz, hip hop, ballet and movement exercises from dance pioneers Ito, Graham, Limon, Humphrey, and Cunningham. 

RDT dancers and artistic staff have been working to contribute to the site daily and will continue to do so to build a large online education resource. During this challenging time, RDT is prioritizing its efforts to offer teachers the full measure of opportunities in providing dance education to their students.  


Tanner Dance

Tanner Dance at the University of Utah is providing online resources for educators and families this summer. Students, teachers, and families can take a sampling of virtual classes from the Arts-in-Education program on Tanner Dance’s website. Examples of these lessons include rhythm patterns, rocks and shapes, and negative space. A rotating library of past Tanner Dance performances can also be viewed from home.  

This summer, Tanner Dance is offering weekly live Zoom classes for toddlers, children, tweens, teens, and adults, as well as Flipgrid camps that include dance technique, improvisation, composition, visual art, and drumming for dancers in grades 1-12. Registration for camps and classes is available at https://tannerdance.utah.edu/programs/summer-session/.

When school resumes, Tanner Dance can provide virtual dance lessons for K-6 classrooms through YouTube or through live distance-learning sessions. For more information, please contact Rachel Kimball at rachel.kimball@utah.edu.

 More information on POPS resources can be found in this earlier post.

Laura Giles is a lover of all things art, a first-grade teacher in Alpine School District, a writer for The Daily Herald newspaper, an Arts Leadership Academy graduate and has earned the Arts Integration Endorsement from Brigham Young University. She can be reached at LauraCGiles@gmail.com. 
Online Resources for Arts Learning:
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Non-tech Arts Activities at Home: Visual Arts

Tired of tech? Sick of screens?

Try these non-tech VISUAL ARTS activities!

Non-tech arts activities provided by professional educators in dance, drama, music, and visual arts on the BYU ARTS Partnership leadership team.  

Visual arts include drawing, painting, sculpting, and three-dimensional object art. Using easy-to-find materials from around the house, these fun activities engage both sides of the brain, relieve stress, create unity, boost self-esteem, and encourage creative thinking. See if you can inspire your students or family members to think of their own activities!
1. Draw a map of your house. Include all the rooms. Add people in your family.
2. Write and illustrate four-step instructions for how to: wash your hands; become invisible; make a sandwich; teach a crocodile to dance; or, tame a virus.
3. Use chocolate pudding as finger paint. Tape your paper down first, so that it won’t wrinkle so much when it dries. Then, try ketchup on another piece of paper. On another piece of paper, try mustard. Compare the different textures of the dried “paints”. Can you think of something else that might be good for finger paint?
4. Write and illustrate a love letter, poem, or song to your favorite place.
5. Find an empty toilet paper roll. Create a character using markers, yarn, tape, glue, paper, magazines, glitter, etc. Find a habitat outside somewhere, place your character in it, and take a photo. Next, draw your toilet roll character on a piece of paper.
6. Create a paper bag puppet. Put on a puppet show.
7. Find a rock and wash it off. Paint it. Write a positive message on your rock if you want to. Then go for a walk and leave it somewhere for someone to find. This is called, “A Random Act of Art.” You are sharing art. You could make other random acts of art on paper, and tie them on a tree  or a fence for someone special to find.
8. Make a dancer out of aluminum foil. You can put some wire in it first, if you have some. Then hold you dancer up on the edge of a piece of paper, shine a light on it, and trace its shadow. Finish drawing the other details of the foil dancer on the paper.
9. Use a squeeze bottle full of water, or a spray bottle with a stream setting, and “paint” with water on the sidewalk.
10. Play “Exquisite Corpse” with your family. Divide a piece of paper into three sections. Draw a head on the first section, then fold/cover it and give it to someone else. They will draw the body and arms. Cover it again, and pass it to someone for the legs. Unfold the paper and see what you have. Refine your creature. Give it a name. Research “exquisite corpse”, and see how surrealists use it to create fantasy drawings.
Written by Cindy Clark, visual artist, educator, and member of the BYU ARTS Partnership Leadership Team. Find more resources at http://advancingartsleadership.com/node/21 

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Relax, Refresh, and Rejuvenate through the Arts!

Relax, Refresh, and Rejuvenate through the Arts! 

Ideas for home-based arts instruction provided by Elementary Arts Educators in Dance, Drama, Music, and Visual Arts. More resources at AdvancingArtsLeadership.com 


During these unsettling times, parents can take charge of their time with their children. Remember
how fun pre-school was? Singing, drawing, dancing, playing pretend, and reading aloud? High level learning happens during those hours of play, and these activities continue to be beneficial for people of all ages.

Arts activities relax the body, refresh the mind, and help us connect to others. Arts activities are multi-sensory, minds-on, hands-on experiences that invite conversations and build relationships. Parents can invite their children to make art with them in a playful way and optimize the experience by breathing deeply, relaxing, and being fully present as their children engage.

When playing with children, listen to the children’s ideas, then reward their efforts with smiles and kindness. Working along-side them encourages their focus and concentration. Inspire them to improve their ability by enjoying quality works of art together. Listen to music, sing, talk about works of art, discuss movies, and books. Most of all, have fun and celebrate successes. Set the stage, turn up the music and dance! Here are some ideas for home-based arts instruction to get you started.

VISUAL ART 


 DRAW!
Draw something from the 100 Sketchbook Prompts or 100 Silly Drawing Prompts every day. Add details such as texture, value/shading, and color. Feel free to use the back of your classwork to draw on, if you do not have other paper available.

LAND ART SCULPTURE
Take inspiration from Land Artists such as Andy Goldworthy, Robert Smithson, and Richard Long. Have your child look at images from these artists as inspiration for their own Land Art sculpture. If you do not have access to outdoor space such as a yard or wilderness area, you can have students use Legos, toys from their playroom, cardboard, or other materials to assemble their sculpture. Even food and veggies on their lunch plate!


MAKE SALT DOUGH
2 Cups all purpose Flour
1 Cup Salt
1 Cup cold Water

Mix flour and salt together in a bowl. Slowly mix water, a few tablespoons at a time, into flour mixture until dough is smooth and easy to handle. Knead dough for 10 minutes and let rest for 20 minutes. Help your student do the measuring and mixing/kneading, talking about the texture and how it feels before and after adding the water.

After the ten minutes of kneading you can divide up the mixture into three portions and add a few drops of food coloring to be mixed into the clay. The primary colors of red, yellow, and blue are recommended.

Let it rest for 20 minutes. When the clay is ready, have children sculpt a creature or character from a story they are currently reading. Talk about the shapes that make up that creature, and the different parts/details. If you added color, they can mix parts of the clay together to create secondary colors.

After they are done the clay can be put into an airtight container for several days then disposed of. You can also leave the sculptures out to dry in the air or bake them in a 250 degree oven for about two hours (until hard and dry).

MUSIC

MUSICAL SCAVENGER HUNT
Look around your house and find the following sounds. An object you find may fit more than one of the items below. For example, a metal pot lid tapped with a wooden spoon is something you tap, it is metal, it can be loud, and it may be quiet.

Something you rattle or shake
Something you tap
Something you scrape
Something you blow in or across
Something metal
Something plastic
Something wood
Something that can make a loud sound
Something that can make a quiet sound
Something that makes a low sound
Something that makes a high sound
Something that makes a short sound
Something that makes a long sound

Arrange the items into three categories: metal, plastic, wood. Start over and arrange the items into four categories based on how you make each sound: shake, tap, scrape, blow. Can you change the sound of the object? Can you make it louder, quieter, higher, or lower? Arrange from low sounds to high sounds.

BIM BUM
Body percussion is making percussive musical sounds using only your body -- such as clapping your hands, patting your lap, or stamping your feet. Try this body percussion game song. It is first sung as an echo song, so you may want to watch and listen as each phrase is sung, then try the body percussion on the echo. The song might be easy to sing, but the body percussion gets tricky! Clap your hands on the word bim, snap your fingers on the word bum, and pat your lap on biddy.

Once you have mastered the body percussion, find household objects that will make three distinct sounds. Decide which “instrument” or object you want to play, then choose the one word on which you will play your instrument each time it is sung: bim, bum, or biddy. Have two other friends or family members play the other two instruments on the other words. Challenge: Can you sing the entire song but play your instrument only on the specific word? This might take some practice!

FAMILY FOLK SONGS
What country or part of the world does your family come from? Find it on a map or globe. Have a family member sing a song they know from that country or region, or find a folk song from that country or region. What is the history of the song? Why did people sing the song?If there is more than one song, which is your favorite? Why? Create actions or movements to go along with the song and perform them as you sing.

DRAMA

CHIN PUPPETS
Make a chin puppet! Sure, have some giggles making funny faces or lip syncing to a song, then go beyond. Create a character: give your chin puppet a name, a unique voice, a personality with likes and dislikes. Hold a conversation. Tell a story. Keep your chin up!



PLAY IT. . .BACKWARDS!
Make a list of events (or draw scenes) from a favorite story. The story could be the plot from a book, movie or event. Now. . . act it out: backwards! It’s harder than it sounds – and is a fun challenge. Good luck!

ZOO-DO!
Create a zoo of your own with stuffed animals, lego animals, toy animals or YOU as an animal! Make sure you give your critters a healthy habitat with plenty to do. What is your favorite exhibit? What might the animals be thinking when you look at them? What kinds of adventures might happen in a zoo? Make your own zoo today, do!

DANCE

FAMILY DANCE
Listen to different genres of music and think about what movements they inspire. Have fun dancing free style to any selection. Allow each child to choose their favorite and explain why. Try learning some of the movement of each family member. You could choose one movement from each family member and create a family dance. Begin and end with a family connecting shape using levels and all kinds of line and design to make your shapes interesting. See what creative things you can come up with and enjoy the experience of dancing together.

HAPPY DANCE
Watch “Happy Dance” on YouTube. Follow the dance moves in the video and make up moves of your own. Talk about what makes you happy, and reasons why you are happy right now. Read Do Your Happy Dance! Celebrate Wonderful You and have a discussion. Some points of discussion could be: The Peanuts characters persisting at school, in sports or other extracurricular activities, or at any life experience. Make connections to your own unique experiences and find reasons to celebrate and do a “Happy Dance!” Turn the music video back on and have a dance of celebrating wonderful YOU!

Other Resources for the Happy Dance

 GIRAFFES CAN’T DANCE
Read the book Giraffes Can’t Dance by Giles Andreae (or watch the animated video or watch the Giraffes Can’t Dance (Silly Song). Have a discussion about feelings/emotions that Gerald and the other animals might be having. You can talk about how we feel when we fall and make mistakes, and how it feels when others make fun of us at those times. This can lead to a conversation about a growth mindset: a belief that our most basic abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work.

Create a dance together! Using the action words in the story provide an opportunity for your children to try leaping, prancing, skipping, swaying, swishing and twirling. Give them time to make their own dance. Sit together in a circle and have a “Jungle Dance” giving any who would wish to share the dance they created. After this you can take turns learning each other’s dances. (Jungle Dance Music)

Find more ideas for arts at home here.

Written by members of the BYU ARTS Partnership Leadership Team: Melissa Deletant (Visual Arts Educator), Cally Flox (Director of the BYU ARTS Partnership). Miriam Bowen (Dance Educator), Lisa Bean (Drama Educator), and Jennifer Purdy (Music Educator).

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A Tasty Art Show: The Student Art Gallery in the McKay School Showcases Food-Inspired Art from Lakeview Elementary

March 6, 2020

Few people know that some of the most imaginative artwork on BYU campus is housed in the school of education. Colorful drawings line the second floor of the David O. McKay Building in the Student Art Gallery, from cakes that allow you to communicate with dolphins to superhero cupcakes to pizzas inspired by paleontology. Who are these daring artists who experiment with form and push the boundaries of originality? They are the students of Lakeview Elementary School.

Sponsored by the Beverley Taylor Sorenson BYU ARTS Partnership, the Student Art Gallery encourages learning through the arts in elementary schools by showcasing the work of students from the five public school districts in the BYU–Public School Partnership.

Lakeview was the first school chosen for the art gallery. Elicia Gray, the Beverley Taylor Sorenson Arts Learning Program (BTSALP) specialist at Lakeview Elementary in Provo, Utah, led the students of Lakeview from kindergarten to third grade as well as fifth grade through different art exercises. Hundreds of students from Lakeview submitted artwork for the Tasty Art Show, and eighteen were chosen to represent their school.

The partnership hosted its first gala for the gallery during February. Students and their family members were invited to explore the gallery, see their art, and snack on BYU’s famous mint brownies. Each student received a certificate congratulating them on earning a place in the gallery. 

Here are some of the highlights:

“Bentley’s Cupcakes” by Bentley, Kindergarten
Kindergartners explore kindness and sharing by inventing a cupcake. “If I could create a cupcake that I would give to my friends, this is what it would look like. One is a Spiderman one, and one is a Batman one. All of them are bubble gum flavored. They give you spiderweb powers and Batman wings when you eat them.”

“Soda Art” by McKenzie, First Grade 
First graders learned how to keep from “blowing their tops” like soda pop. “If I could create a soda that would make you good at drawing, this is what it would look like. It’s a soda that makes you good at drawing with paint. It tastes like bubble gum; it smells like mint. There are pencils on it that are curvy.”



 “The Coolest Pizza Ever” by William, Second Grade 
Second graders created pizzas to practice problem-solving. “If I could create a pizza that would make you good at to be a paleontologist, this is what it would look like. It would look like this: it has bones and skulls and people that dig into the ground and a detector that finds bones underground.”
“Dragon Blood Ice-cream” by Charlie, Third Grade 
Third graders used persuasion to create their own irresistible ice cream flavors. “My ice cream flavor is: dragon blood, tears, metal, paper, soap, ink, and chocolate. The only place to get this is Antarctica. It cost 100,000,000,000,000 pennies. (And only pennies).”

“Dolphin Island” by Natalie, Fifth Grade 
Fifth graders learned about the artist Wayne Thiebaud, mimicking his style as they used pastels to create their own cakes. “My cake is strawberry and raspberry flavored. You can talk to dolphins when you eat it. The icing is blueberry flavored. The cake makes me happy when I eat it.”


The gallery will remain in the McKay School until the end of March, when each of the winning students from Lakeview Elementary will receive their artwork in a large black frame donated by the ARTS Partnership.

Lakeview won’t be the only school spotlighted in the art gallery. The ARTS Partnership plans on continuing the gallery with a new group of students from a different local elementary school every other month. Students in the five public school districts in the BYU–Public School Partnership (Alpine, Jordan, Nebo, Provo City, and Wasatch County) will all have a chance to submit their artwork for the art gallery’s consideration.
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Utah Women’s History to Be Celebrated in 2020

February 7, 2020

Better Days 2020, a nonprofit organization dedicated to popularizing Utah women’s history through art, education, and legislation, has reason to celebrate this year—as do all of us. This year, Better Days 2020 will celebrate the 150th anniversary of Utah women casting their first ballots, the first American women to vote under an equal suffrage law. It is also the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment, which gave equal voting rights to women; and the 55th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act, which protected voting rights of racial minorities.

Arts-Based Initiatives 

There will be numerous arts event to celebrate these landmarks happening throughout the state during 2020. These events, both educational and uplifting, integrate the arts with history and will be engaging to educators and students alike.

The Utah Division of Arts and Museum’s Traveling Exhibit Program will feature Utah artist Brooke Smart’s 50 original illustrations of Utah women’s rights advocates. Check out the full schedule. The exhibit’s last destination will be the Springville Museum of Art and will be on display there from May to August.

The “Utah Women Working for the Vote and Beyond” exhibit features reproductions of Smart’s 50 illustrations paired with historic artifacts. This will be on display on the fourth floor of the Utah State Capitol Building from January¬ to December 2020.

Better Days 2020 has also released “Utah Women Making History Trading Cards” and a book titled Champions of Change: 25 Women Who Made History, both of which feature Smart’s illustrations.

Women’s Rights Memorials

A statue of Dr. Martha Hughes Cannon—Utah’s first female state senator—is to be installed in National Statuary Hall in August 2020. Check out this website to learn more about the statue and Hughes Cannon herself.

There will be a new Women’s History Memorial installed at Council Hall in Salt Lake City. The sculpture was designed by Utah artists Kelsey Harrison and Jason Manley and will memorialize the first woman to vote and honor the millions of women who have voted in Utah and across the nation since that important day.

Resources for Educators 

There are other ways to get involved during 2020. Schools can become Utah HERitage Schools and receive free swag and a toolkit of materials to learn and celebrate.

Better Days 2020 would love to hear from schools where teachers and students develop their own arts projects to commemorate and celebrate this special year. Students can attend the 150th Anniversary “First to Vote” Celebration at the Utah State Capitol on February 12, which coincides with another Utah State Capital event, Arts Day on the Hill.

Educators can find free downloadable resources at www.utahwomenshistory.org to help educate students and participate in the celebration. These resources include


For updated information and more ideas, follow the organization on social media @betterdays2020.

Laura Giles is a lover of all things art, a first grade teacher in Alpine School District, a writer for The Daily Herald newspaper, and an Arts Leadership Academy graduate. She has earned the Arts Integration Endorsement from Brigham Young University. She can be reached at LauraCGiles@gmail.com.
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Finding the Best Arts Specialist

October 18, 2019

Who a principal hires to teach the arts at a school can impact student learning and school culture. At the elementary level, an arts teacher serves every student in the school in one art form and provides leadership across all the art forms. At the secondary level, there is often only one teacher in each art form at the school, which means the entire school program is dependent on the skills, ability, and professional commitment of that individual. At both levels, the teacher plays a critical role to build a quality program over time.

To optimize the impact of arts programs, the BYU ARTS Partnership has provided tools for administrators to find the most effective arts educators for their schools. Over the past two years, the Partnership has put together resources for elementary and secondary school administrators with an abundance of information about how to build an arts-rich school, including indicators of a quality arts specialist and how to recruit and hire one.

To create the resources, leaders in the BYU ARTS Partnership worked with the presidents of the Utah Art Education Association, Utah Music Educators Association, Utah Dance Education Organization, and Utah Advisory Council of Theatre Teachers. Each agreed that administrators would like to find the best candidates for their schools because choosing the right teacher has such a strong impact on the school culture and the students, according to Heather Francis, BYU ARTS Partnership research coordinator.

Steps to finding that quality instructor include recruiting from the best pool of candidates; considering licenses, degrees, certifications and accreditation; investigating pedagogical approaches and dispositions; observing teaching; and asking the right questions.

The group determined administrators should know certain questions for each specific art form that can be asked as part of the interview process. The resources include sample interview questions and sample strategies for getting to know the candidates. For example, a strong question for a music educator might be, “What types of ensembles have you directed?” and “What styles of music are you most comfortable directing?”

Administrators might not be certain about which qualifications to look for in a prospective arts teacher. An example, according to Francis, is an administrator who may not know which items on a dancer’s resume prepared the candidate for teaching in the classroom, choreography, or performance opportunities. The resources recommend principals look to see if the candidate is part of their professional dance education organization and if they have previously taught students to choreograph their own work.

Some questions can help an administrator make a decision about an arts specialist, regardless of the art form. What exactly does it mean to be educationally minded in the arts? What kinds of qualifications does the specialist have? What kinds of impact has the candidate had on a school in the past?

Principals may contact professional arts education organizations to inquire about available arts educators. These organizations are also a support and resource as they provide professional development for arts teachers after they are hired.

The process to finding a quality arts specialist can be tricky, but help is here, in the form of the “Building an Arts-Rich School” online resource materials.

* There will be a session at the Learning Edge Administrator's Conference on November 12th about "Building an Arts Rich School." Please visit https://education.byu.edu/cites/learning-edge-2019 to register.


Laura Giles is a lover of all things art, a first-grade teacher in Alpine School District, a writer for the Daily Herald newspaper, an Arts Leadership Academy graduate, and has earned the Arts Integration Endorsement from Brigham Young University. She can be reached at LauraCGiles@gmail.com.
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Chalk Art Festivals and Summer Fun

     Liz Brown is the Beverley Taylor Sorenson Arts Learning Program Visual Arts Specialist at Daniels Canyon Elementary and Old Mill Elementary in the Wasatch County School District. During the last week of school, Liz hosted school-wide chalk festivals at both locations. Each class was given a designated area on the school sidewalks to create chalk art. Every student received professional chalk pastels that can be used in unique ways to create pieces of art.

     Before the students could begin to draw on the sidewalks, they had to learn about chalk pastel techniques. First, Liz had the students practice blending and shading techniques on paper. Then, they practiced pressing the chalk into the paper to create varying levels of thickness and sharpness. The students were also taught how to properly scale a small piece to a larger size, which created an opportunity to integrate art and math.

 
   
     Prior to becoming a specialist, Liz was a classroom teacher and participated in the BYU ARTS Partnership’s Arts Leadership Academy. Over ten days of professional development workshops, she learned skills in five art forms and techniques for integrating the arts into other curricular areas. She then participated in Arts Bridge, a program where a BYU student came to her classroom to teach art lessons. Even though the Arts Leadership Academy did not provide the qualifications necessary to become a specialist, Liz has still been able to apply what she learned to her current position. Of the experience, Liz said, “Before Arts Academy I loved to use art, but I looked at art as the fun stuff. Through Arts Academy and through the action research I did with Arts Bridge, I really saw that it wasn’t just fun stuff. I felt like I could justify with research and valid sources why I was doing art, and why it was having a deep impact on my students.”


 Liz now advocates to bring school-wide opportunities in the arts to other teachers. These opportunities include programs by the Kimball Arts Center and Arts-Kids, Inc. from Park City, Utah, as well as field trips to BYU. “Arts Academy gave me more confidence to advocate for the arts” she said. “Other teachers wanted their students to have more of the arts as well.” The chalk festival was a perfect way for Liz to end the year with an arts experience for both schools. To learn more about Arts Leadership Academy, visit https://education.byu.edu/arts/arts_leadership_series
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The 150th Anniversary of the Golden Spike Unites History and the Arts in Elementary Classrooms

On May 10, 2019 Utahans will celebrate the 150-year anniversary of the Golden Spike Ceremony.

The first transcontinental railroad connected the West Coast, rich in gold and other precious metals, to the industrial Northeast and spurred western expansion by cutting the travel time between the West and East Coasts from six months to six days.

The Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroads met at Utah’s Promontory Summit in 1869, uniting the two main tracks into a single railroad line—the Transcontinental Railroad. To mark the meeting, Leland Stanford, cofounder of the Central Pacific Railroad, added a 17.6-karat gold spike as the last piece of the railroad.

To celebrate the 150-year anniversary of the golden spike, BYU ARTS Partnership created six lessons for third to sixth graders which use art, music, dance, and theater to teach students about the Transcontinental Railroad.

The Railroad Rhythms  by Jennifer Purdy

(click here to view the lesson plan)

Students explore sound layering by performing railroad sounds to a steady beat and creating a railroad soundscape. Teachers read Iron Horses by Verla Kay while students use simple classroom instruments, found sounds, body percussion, tapping, or vocalizations to follow the book’s rhythm. Dividing the class into groups, students practice layering rhythms as the class become an orchestral chorus of whistles, wheels, steam, and motors. Using musical terms such as accelerando, piano, and forte, teachers guide their students in their transcontinental railroad orchestra. Students also find the rhythm in language by using words related to the railroad to count syllables.

New Newsies: Uncovering the Stories Buried beneath the Golden Spike  by David Dynak


This lesson helps develop research skills as students inspect primary sources and perform a theatrical piece on newsies. The newsies strike of 1899 is a perfect example of how the railroad changed American society; New York City newsies united to strike after Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst raised newspaper prices. In this activity, students read primary and secondary sources to uncover the full story behind the building of the Transcontinental Railroad. After researching, students perform in a play which dramatizes the sometimes-unknown experiences of many groups affected by the Transcontinental Railroad. Diving into roles as newsies allows students to perform their new-found knowledge on the building of the railroad.


Real and Ideal: A Closer Look at Westward Expansion by Rachel Jackson Gonthier


Students learn to identify the differences between romanticized ideals and reality by comparing romantic paintings to photographs. Nineteenth century paintings of the American West romanticize the landscape and the ideals tied to westward expansion. Photographs from the same time period provide a realistic portrayal of the landscape to contrast these romanticized ideals. This allows students to analyze how pictures tell stories and create certain perceptions. Students are invited to reflect on how they romanticize their own lives. Students also practice identifying misleading images by taking photographs of the same object from different angles. When finished, students present their pictures to the class and explain how a different perspective can change the viewer’s perception.


Iron Horses  by Miriam Bowen


Students read the book Iron Horses by Verla Kay to explore the eight types of locomotor body movements: walking, running, hopping, skipping, jumping, galloping, leaping, and sliding. The class is divided into different groups to perform the locomotor movements. By practicing these movements, students bring the written word to life and make connections between people walking, horses galloping, and the Transcontinental Railroad chugging.

The Great American Bison  by Brenda Beyal


This lesson utilizes acting and art to show students how history is a complex narrative with multiple perspectives. The lesson showcases the advantages and disadvantages of building a Transcontinental Railroad and how the railroad negatively impacted Native Americans and the great American bison. The railroad cut through Native American hunting grounds and diminished the bison population, their main source of food. Native Americans remained resourceful and used every part of the bison they killed. During the lesson, students follow their example by being resourceful. Students create an art piece with recyclable materials such as plastic bottles, old papers, and cereal boxes. In another activity, students learn there are many perspectives within one story and how to implement thought tracking through role playing exercises.

Railroad Meter  by Emily Soderborg


This lesson connects the Transcontinental Railroad to music. When constructing the railroad, builders used musical beats to move the railroad tracks together. Listening to the song “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad,” students tap the beat to gain a sense for meter and identify two-meter, three-meter, four-meter, and mixed-meter rhythms within different songs. Students can play instruments alongside the musical recordings to understand meter. For the third activity, the teacher plays several songs sung by groups who worked on the railroad or who were impacted by the railroad. Students divide into groups to research and perform each song. The songs come from an array of peoples and cultures including African American, Irish, Chinese, Latter-day Saint, and Shoshone. At the end of the lesson, students prepare and present a brief presentation on the history of their song to the class.

BYU ARTS Partnership lessons unite historical events with the arts to give students a multilayered understanding of the past. These lessons encourage students to analyze history and uncover facts excluded in traditional historical texts.

Students learn to question history and become historical detectives. These lessons also explore history as a complex narrative; they cover how valuable resources benefitted American expansion while also teaching the high cost of this expansion for Native Americans as well as the detrimental impact on certain groups of immigrants. As students delve into history, they learn how the past shapes the present and their own identity as Americans.

Look for these lesson titles at https://education.byu.edu/arts/lessons/. Special thanks to Brenda Beyal, David Dynak, Jennifer Purdy, Emily Soderborg, Miriam Bowen, and Rachel Jackson Gonthier, who developed these lessons.

Writer: Emma Smith
Contact: Cindy Glad (801) 422-1922
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Abundance of Arts Resources Provided to Schools

More than 350 schools in Utah have a plethora of arts resources at their fingertips after being provided with binders full of materials, strategies, contacts, and resources that will contribute to the building up of arts-rich schools. This information was gathered through a process of researching, surveying, questioning, gathering, and writing.

In 2018, the presidents of Utah Art Education Association, Utah Music Educators Association, Utah Dance Education Organization, and Utah Advisory Council of Theatre Teachers formed a team. In each arts area, chapters were written for the secondary school edition of “Building an Arts-Rich School: Strategies and Resources for Administrators” binders. The first edition was presented to elementary principals last year and to secondary principals, with the additional chapters, this year. The materials are now combined and available online on the BYU ARTS Partnership website in addition to lesson plans for teachers and other resources.

At the beginning of the process, the members of the BYU ARTS Partnership leadership team and arts specialists within the BYU ARTS Partnership were asked what they want their principals to know. After this information was gathered, the writing team created the content for the elementary school edition. The first edition was presented in a session at the 2017 Learning Edge Conference.

The following year, one representative from each professional arts education organization contributed on a panel to introduce the additions included in the secondary school edition at the 2018 Learning Edge Conference. Key points and objectives of the materials were shared. Every principal in the BYU–Public School Partnership was given a binder.


While many administrators and educators understand the importance of an arts-infused education for their students, they may not always know what to do, how to do it, where to find help, and how to pay for materials. With these new resources in hand, principals now have a starting point and pathway to move toward their arts goals for their schools.

The hope is they will discuss the detailed information with teachers to find the best solutions and provide quality arts experiences for students at their schools. A self-assessment is included to reflect upon current practices. If areas fall short, the principals and other school personnel can use the resources included in the “Arts-Rich Schools Resources” to begin finding solutions.

Activities required to produce the project included interviewing local teaching artists; defining what constitutes an arts-rich school; surveying principals of schools that matched qualifications for arts-rich schools; personal correspondence with community arts organizations; and compiling infographics, white pages, and research articles.

The binders include the sections “For Schools,” “For Teachers,” “For Students,” “Funding and Advocacy,” and “Arts Standards.” Examples of resources include professional development information, strategies for hiring qualified arts specialists, partnership opportunities, descriptions of available grants, and lists of a variety of online resources. These and other materials that will increase the quality and quantity of arts education in local schools are available at education.byu.edu/arts.

Laura Giles is a lover of all things art, a first-grade teacher in Alpine School District, a writer for the Daily Herald newspaper, an Arts Leadership Academy graduate, and has earned the Arts Integration Endorsement from Brigham Young University. She can be reached at LauraCGiles@gmail.com.
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