Brookville Elementary School/Jefferson County Schools

Exploring the Taos Pueblo's multi-storied adobe buildings

The Southwest Experience through Art, Culture, and Collaboration --Project Summary:
This summer I had a unique opportunity to fuel my passion for art through unique self-designed professional development. Just as my students are more engaged in learning when there are hands on activities, unique artifacts and people for them to interact with; I too learn more richly and deeply when I am immersed in a cultural experience. For two weeks, art educators from around the country convened in New Mexico and conspired with each other to find new ways to inspire our students once we returned home.

I met amazing artists from Native American Pueblos. One artist is a jeweler and invited us into his home where we were able to see his art making techniques as well as taste the culturally rich and flavorful food his wife had prepared for us; including homemade bread made in the traditional horno oven. Another clay artist prepared micaceous clay for us and we were able to create our own sculpture inspired by Pueblo pottery which concluded with a clay pit fire in the ground at her house. I attended the annual International Folk Art Festival that brought together over 150 artists from 60 plus countries. I even got to have conversations with a Oaxacan wood carver and a Huichol yarn painter from Mexico as well as a Ralli Quilter from Pakistan. I got to experiment with art myself by making a memory quilt, made sculptures out of recycled computer parts, and my very own retablo. I also hiked through historic parks capturing the natural vistas on camera to share with my students. I collected artifacts, shared ideas with fellow art teachers, and blogged about it all!

 Blog-- Lindsay Lou's Happenings

Managing the Art Classroom --Art Parodies

 

In fall of 2013 Lindsay was awarded Alabama Art Teacher of the Year by AAEA (Alabama Art Education Association).  Last school year she became a Nationally Board Certified teacher in Early through Middle Childhood Art.

 

In the summer of 2014,  Linsay was chosen (along with 15 other educators across the country) as a recipient of the Fulbright-Hays seminars abroad to China.  They visited the Chinese Ministry of Education and attended many lectures across the country and had engaging conversations about the bilateral partnership between the U.S. and China about similarities, differences, strengths and weaknesses in the education systems of both countries.  Upon their return they created a curriculum project to be taught to the students and to share with teachers across the globe.  You can see all of the curriculum projects on the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations website here:

 http://www.ncuscr.org/?q=programs/fulbright

Lindsay's project description for the Fulbright-Hays program.

Acrobats, Abacus, and Alphabets: Making Connections to China through Arts Integration in the Elementary Setting (Elementary School) by Lindsay Mouyal, 2014

The purpose of this project is to integrate the teaching of visual art with other classroom contents (Science, Math, Reading, Writing, History, and Character Education) in the study of China.  This curriculum project consists of three arts integration lesson plans spanning six grades. 

The first lesson plan, Global Citizenship: Air-Color-Dance-Think, incorporates environmental concerns with the creation of an art installation and developing a performance art activity.  This will manifest through the research of current air quality levels in China and at home, a collaborative art installation project incorporating the symbolic colors represented in the air quality index chart, a movement activity connecting air quality levels to emotions and quality of life and a follow up activity inspiring students to problem solve ways to address this growing global concern.  The teacher will emphasize China’s rich history of performance (acrobats, opera, Chinese New Year parades, etc.) as inspiration for the movement activity.  This lesson is suggested for grades Kindergarten and 1st grade (Science & Social Studies collaboration)

The second lesson plan, Abacus Art: A Story of Art, Math, and Trade along the Silk Road, allows students to draw relevant connections between visual art, mathematics, and the history of China.  During this lesson, students will investigate the history of the abacus and look for it in famous Chinese paintings (such as Along the River During the Qingming Festival).  Students will then create a small abacus to use in their own personal math practices.  This lesson is suggested for grades 2nd – 3rd (Math collaboration)

The third, and final, lesson, Visual Correspondence: Calligraphy as Art and Writing, focuses on the ancient Chinese art form of calligraphy.  During this lesson, students will study and interpret visual representations of various languages; or mainly Chinese and English. Students will examine the evolution of the Chinese character from the pictograph to the present styles; as well as the influence of calligraphy and linguistics in the works of contemporary artists (such as Xu Bing).  Students will incorporate knowledge learned into an art and pen-pal writing activity.  This lesson is suggested for grades 4th – 5th (Grammar & Writing collaboration).

Link to lesson plans.  https://www.ncuscr.org/sites/default/files/Acrobats-Abacus-and-Alphabets-Mouyal.pdf

 

Through her role as membership chair for AAEA (Alabama Art Education Association) Lindsay started a campaign to highlight the wonderful work going on in visual arts classrooms across the state on the AAEA website.  It's called the Monthly Member Spotlight.  You can check it out here http://aaeaonline.org/?page_id=786 (and scroll down to the bottom of the page to see Lindsay's spotlight with information about what's been going on with her students and in the classroom).

 

Last modified: Wednesday, March 18, 2015, 3:19 PM