In October 2015, C3 Squared teacher teams gathered to begin work on their first unit plan. A separate day-long Peer-to-Peer (P2P) meeting was held for the Grade 4 and Grade 5 teams. Project Director Carol Brown, Curriculum Coordinator Laura Reeder and the project's teaching artists facilitated lively discussions and hands-on art activities (photo, above).
For their unit plans, the teacher teams were asked to integrate arts activities to accomplish specific learning of core subject curricula. These arts activities would include a PUSH Physical Theatre performance. To begin the unit planning session, Ms. Reeder introduced a video of a PUSH Physical Theatre performance.
To help generate ideas for aligning the PUSH performance and other art activities with existing core curriculum, the teaching artists and teacher teams participated in hands-on arts activities…
TA Lucienne Pereria (above, right) guided teachers in the creation of chair sculptures.
Teachers expressed themselves through physical theater.
Teaching artists also facilitated brainstorming sessions to create a unit plan that was meaningful and manageable to the entire team, including classroom teachers, art teachers and other specialty teachers...
TA and teacher teams work on arts-integrated literacy and science units (photos, above and below).
By the end of the day, the teams had developed units with guiding questions, lesson topics, learning goals and anticipated outcomes.