Integrating the Arts {with Aloha to Second}

With all the new standards and new testing, I often find it difficult to add in the arts to my lessons. I decided when I was teaching second grade that it was crucial to have art within my lessons.  Therefore, I wrote reading unit plans that included fun crafts or pieces of art for the lessons.

For my November unit, we learned about character traits.  We read a story as a class and completed a character trait book and craft to go with it. 

This is the story we read.  It was perfect because it wasn't very long and it showed character changes within the story. 

Here is the chart we used as a class. We would discuss what a character trait is and how characters can change based on what happens in the story.  We used post-it notes to show how the character changed from the beginning to the middle and then the middle to the end. 

We made this cute guy for our character trait book. 

The ladies were able to make a pilgrim girl. 

Then, the students completed the character book. 

You can find this unit with the crafts by clicking here! 

I also did this cute craft with my after school club.  I thought I would share it. I used cardboard squares, hole punched two holes at the top, used a pipe cleaner for the beads, and then we painted our hands for the turkeys. I thought they were really cute!