For The Love Of Little Learners: It's Jazz, Baby...

What an incredible week I had with my Little Learners! I always enjoy getting them involved with the arts. Their little faces light up when they dance, sing, paint, etc... However, the very best part of arts integration is seeing their brains and hearts open up to completely new and exciting ideas. My Little Learners and I jumped into the world of Jazz Baby this week. This fun piece of fiction gets children moving and grooving while learning about various literary elements and instruments.

Throughout the week, we did a variety of activities with Jazz Baby. These activities included retelling and webbing of key details and writing. Students also experienced early and modern Jazz music throughout their literacy centers. By the end of the week, I felt that students were able to tackle Jazz in a more critical way. After listening and internalizing some early Jazz, we discussed the feelings that it emotes.

Some of my Little Learners "feeling it"!

Students assisted in creating a chart of our jazzy feelings.

After creating our chart, we began talking about what colors might express these particular feelings. One of my students commented that Jazz made him feel smooth, and purple was a smooth, calm, and cool color. Students viewed samples of various paintings depicting jazz music. They were then asked to paint the emotional effect that the music had on them. Their work was out of sight!