What on the world is going on in there?
by teacherintraining21
As I dropped my students off for music class on Monday, the music teacher asked if my cooperating teacher and I could come back a little early so that the kids could show us what they have been working on. Of course we came back and I am so glad we did! The students performed for us a musical version of the Three Little Pigs story, complete with motions and all. It was so entertaining and gave me somewhat of a glimpse into what they do in music class. Since that wonderful performance, I have found myself thinking about my students and wondering what they do in their specials classes. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that I have no idea what they do in any of their specials classes. I started to wonder if I should know what they are doing in these classes. It could be helpful to know what they are learning in these classes and who seems to really excel in these areas. I could incorporate these into my curriculum and find ways to reach all students better. But how? I have seen how busy the classroom teacher is, and I’m sure the specials teachers are just as busy. Is it realistic to talk with all of the specialist teachers or visit their classes? Is there a way to collaborate more?
teacherintraining21 
I never know what she’s doing back there.
So true friend, it would ultimately benefit our class culture and instruction to be able to incorporate activities from the specialist into our classroom – but where is the time!! I know my CT communicates a lot with the librarian and she often demos books and text features based on the students’ current thematical unit. For example, we are researching animals – so the Librarian helps the students find books on bears or frogs – or whatever their group is researching. She also shows them how to find electronic articles that they can print and bring back to class.
I’m thinking we might be able to collaborate with one specialist at a time… Human Body unit we chat with the PE teacher and coordinate some lessons, for Readers Theater we can go talk to the music teacher, etc, etc… We just need to spread these units out so we won’t have to be collaborating with too many people at once!
I think collaboration with specialists is such a great idea. I’m thinking especially in terms of my kindergarten class…the specialists have a hard time with our kiddos 😦 Part of this, maybe, could be due to the separation of the classroom and the specialist’s classroom. If there was less of a divide, they might know that what does and doesn’t go in one room is the same in the other, and that the teachers are both deserving of the same respect and attention.
But more along the lines of what you’re talking about, as far as curriculum, I think it could be so cool to do some history/social studies integrating with music, it could do a lot for integrating arts and academics so that students see that they can often be one and the same.
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