Manitoba Arts Education

Curriculum Programming
“Exemplars of Learning”
 This exemplar includes

Drama Music Visual Art

appropriate f or grades

K 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
What is a monster?
An Early Years
Learning Experience
This exemplar includes student experiences in
Drama Visual Art

Language, Creative
Tools & Expression
Performance
Skills

Students used art media and Students experimented

processes to explore and and organized their own
demonstrate awareness of line, ideas for dramatic
colour, texture and shape. monster movements.

Understanding
in Valuing
Context Artistic
Experience

Students experienced Students participated

dramatic situations as actively in all arts learning
participant and audience. experiences.
 Every student is an artist, one whose growth and
learning are best facilitated within rich, open-ended,
hands-on ARTMAKING experiences, and rich, open-
ended, participatory DRAMA experiences.

(from: Framework of Outcomes for Arts Education , The Young Artist )

The Learning Context
The Big Idea
What is a monster?

The students in this Grade One class came from a wide range of backgrounds. As the
unit was implemented in the fall term, several students were still 5 years old and
many others were still very young 6 year olds.

Prior learning: students had previously experienced a variety of age appropriate arts
activities integrated into learning across the curriculum.

The Classroom Setting: all learning experiences were carried out in a regular classroom
setting. The children were accustomed to the inquiry process and child centered
learning.
Overview
of teaching and learning experiences
First the students
• asked inquiry questions about monsters

Next they
• expressed some of their ideas about what monsters looked like through visual art

Then they
• explored more ways of expressing ideas about monsters through drama,
movement and sound

Finally the students

• worked in groups to create giant monsters

Teacher Comments about choosing the topic “Monsters” :

“ I needed to bring the students on board and have them motivated for this unit so I
began listening to their conversations and watching their play at recess. I realized that
there was a great deal of play about monsters, creatures and animals happening on the
playground. I grabbed the idea and ran with it!”
First students discussed the inquiry question:
What is a MONSTER?

What do we KNOW
about MONSTERS?

• How do they move?

• How do they sound?
• What do they look like?
• Where do they live?

Student Comments:
“Monsters don’t live in our community they only exist in dreams and in make believe.”

“Monsters do bad things, weird things like kiss bunnies and stuff.”

“You know. Sometimes it is just a trick. People like to play tricks, like in Scooby Doo –
it is always a guy in a costume just trying to scare people.”
They also discussed and recorded additional inquiry questions.

What else do we WANT TO LEARN about monsters ?

 the students
explored, developed
and expressed their
ideas about
Monsters through creating
monster
Visual Art: sounds &
creating rhythms
individual
monster collages Drama:
creating monster
characters, roles &
tableaux
creating
Language Arts: monster
group discussion movements
and webbing

Setting criteria and

reflection:
“How will I know I
have done an
excellent job?”
 Next, in Visual Art the
students created their own
monsters.

Instructions :

1. Draw your own ideas for monsters.

Choose your favorite monster idea &
draw the monster shape onto cardboard
(eg: cereal box cardboard). Cut around
the monster shape with scissors.

2. Glue coloured tissue paper and textured

items onto the cut out monster shape.

(Instructions continue on next slide)

In Art Language and Tools, use art media, tools, and

processes to explore and demonstrate awareness of
the elements of art: line, colour, texture & shape
K–2 A–L1.1
 3. Examine and play with an assortment
of craft supplies and invent how to
make monster features and details
like claws, fangs, hair, scary faces.

4. Glue them onto the cardboard monster.

In Creative Expression in Art, students create images

and objects in response to ideas derived from a
variety of stimuli (e.g., from imagination )
K–1 A–C1.1
Students also discussed criteria for successful completion of their monster collages.

‘How will I know I have done an excellent job?’

Student comments in response to the above question:

My monster will have:

• An interesting shape
• Spooky eyes
• 4 different kinds of materials

My Work Process:
• “I thought of the monsters we read about and tried to add scary or
interesting ideas to my monster.”

• “I will have stayed focused and finished my monster on time.”

In Valuing Artistic Experience, students participate in discussing and establishing criteria for
successful use of art media, elements, and processes K–4 A–V4.2
Students continued to discuss monsters and added ideas to their Monster web
Each monster had their own story, likes, dislikes & favorite foods.

View more student work

Student Comments:

“My monster is a freaky

dude with crazy hair.”

“My monster likes to

whistle!”

“This is my monster: Tiny.”

Teacher Comments:

“What impressed me the

most was the focus that the
students demonstrated
while they were working on
In Understanding Art in Context, students demonstrate
their monster.”
awareness of the intended meanings and/or purposes of
artworks encountered in own … artmaking experiences
K–4 A–U3.3
 Then, In Drama the students
• experienced moving like
monsters
• moved high & low
• imagined that one part of their
body was glued to the ground
with an imaginary glue …. but
the rest of their body was free to
move around

In Drama Language and Performance Skills,

students use body, gesture, and movement to
establish characters and roles and to express
feelings K–4 DR–L2.1 AND
students sustain a willing suspension of
disbelief by staying focused and in character
in play experiences K–4 DR–L2.8
 Students

• worked in small groups and

discussed monster moves with
partners

• shared and discussed their ideas

with the class

Teacher Comments:
“ The students surprised me at
how comfortable they were at
dancing and moving like
monsters.”

In Creative Expression in Drama, students In Dance Language & Performance Skills,

collaborate with others in developing dramatic play students use movement to demonstrate
experiences K–8 DR–C2.6 understanding of the body in dance: body parts,
body shapes, and body actions K–4 DA–L1.1
 The students also experimented on a variety of available instruments to
improvise and invent monster sounds, rhythms and patterns.

Teacher Comments:
“There were several
children who had a lot of
difficulty just keeping a
beat. Keeping the task
simple was the best place
to start.”

In Creative Expression in Music, students experiment

with music to communicate ideas derived from a variety
of stimuli (e.g., a remembered or an imaginary
experience; a poem or a story; music-listening
experiences ) K–2 M–C1.3
Finally, the students
in small groups, constructed monsters and
created a tableau, or a “frozen monster
picture”.

They moved away from their “frozen pictures”

when music (identify music) was played
and stopped when the music stopped.

They moved back to the “frozen picture” when

the music was resumed.

To conclude, the students then divided into two groups.

Each group created a monster movement to scare the other team.

In Creative Expression in Dance, students experiment with dance to communicate ideas derived from a
variety of stimuli (e.g., a story; a remembered or imaginary experience) K–1 DA–C1.3

In Creative Expression in Drama, students use a variety of idea sources (e.g., themes) for dramatic play
experiences K–1 DR–C1.1
Commentary: Teachers
Teacher Comments:

“Assessment is an ongoing process with grade one students. As we were working

on our learning experiences I made many changes along the way based on what I
was observing in the students.
Assessment is easy when criteria are established with the students ahead of time
or during an activity. The art criteria we established as we began.
The criteria for music, drama and dance evolved as the students worked in these
areas. It was very hard for them to think of criteria that were important to them
when they had not experienced these types of activities before.
Afterwards it was quite easy for them to pick out the important things they needed
to do. That is why it is so important to allow students to go back and rethink or try a
different way of working through a task.
The process is what the students enjoyed the most. The product holds more
meaning when students are proud of their accomplishments through the process.”

See appendix
for info on
assessment
Appendix: Learning Across the Curriculum
Literacy learning in the Early Years is embedded in play. Early childhood
educators have always recognized the value of play for social, emotional, intellectual,
and physical development. Oral language develops through social interaction and
through play at the sand and water table, and at other traditional Early Years centres.

Play is recognized as an important vehicle for developing all aspects of literacy

because it provides a functional, meaningful setting for language development. Teachers
promote and extend students’ reading, writing, speaking, listening, viewing, and
representing skills by helping them create imaginative centres around themes in the
classroom.

From: Kindergarten to Grade 4 English Language Arts Goals:

A Foundation for Implementation

Implementation Overview: K-4

Creating a Literacy-Rich Environment - Part 2

Teaching Literacy through Imaginative Play

Appendix: Manitoba Education Resources
Rethinking Classroom Assessment with Purpose in Mind

“Assessment can enhance student motivation by

• emphasizing progress and achievement rather than failure
• providing feedback to move learning forward
• reinforcing the idea that students have control over, and
responsibility for, their own learning
• building confidence in students so they can and need to take risks
• being relevant, and appealing to students’ imaginations
• providing the scaffolding that students need to genuinely succeed”

Rethinking Classroom Assessment with Purpose in Mind, page 7

For more information, see:

Rethinking Classroom
Assessment with Purpose
in Mind
Appendix: Manitoba Education Resources
Rethinking Classroom Assessment with Purpose in Mind
“The teacher’s role in promoting the development of independent
learners through assessment as learning is to
• model and teach the skills of self-assessment
• guide students in setting goals, and monitoring their progress
toward them
• provide exemplars and models of good practice and quality work
that reflect curriculum outcomes
• work with students to develop clear criteria of good practice
• guide students in developing internal feedback or self-monitoring
mechanisms to validate and question their own thinking, and to
become comfortable with the ambiguity and uncertainty that is
inevitable in learning anything new
• provide regular and challenging opportunities to practise, so that
students can become confident, competent self-assessors
For more information, see: • monitor students’ metacognitive processes as well as their
Rethinking Classroom learning, and provide descriptive feedback
Assessment with Purpose • create an environment where it is safe for students to take
in Mind chances and where support is readily available”

Rethinking Classroom Assessment with Purpose in Mind, page 43

 Why was this exemplar a valuable learning experience?
Language, Tools and Creative Expression
Performance Skills Students generated, developed, and
Students used body, gesture, and communicated ideas about monsters
movement to establish monster and performed their drama creations
characters and roles and to express for each other. In Art they developed
feelings. They stayed focused and in their own designs for monsters by
character in their play and tableau creatively combining available collage
experiences. In Art they demonstrated media, and art elements
understanding of and facility with the
medium of collage and the art elements
of shape, colour and texture

Valuing Experience
Students discussed and reflected on
their own dramatic work, they
Understanding in Context
established criteria for art and used the
Students connected their art and criteria to reflect on their own artistic
drama to their own interests and creations.
understanding of the topic of monsters.