#ISLDixon

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International School of Louisiana-Dixon Kindergarten, Dance Composition & Science Ms. Jalisa / Ms. Yani

In Ms. Yani’s class, we have been learning about what we can do to save our planet and the animals that live in it! We learned about what happens to plastic when it ends up in the ocean. Based on what we learned, students drew what they thought would happen to a sea turtle if Ms. Jalisa threw a water bottle into the ocean. Instead of explaining their drawings with their words, students showed their drawings to their classmates, and then performed a dance explanation of their answer to the question. Audience members were able to say what they thought would happen based on what they saw their classmates create!

[kidsmartnola]

The Giving of Thanks and Good Food

ISL DIXON- Kindergarten Social Studies

This semester I have been trying to have a mindset of "progress and growth" when it comes to the lessons. I want every lesson to build upon something that the students are already familiar with, be it from a previous lesson or something outside of school. Incorporating language with social studies and art has lead to some really great opportunities! My most recent lesson felt like I finally hit the sweet spot of all three at once. The lesson was about Thanksgiving and holidays. So far this semester i have kept all of the student's art at the school. Naturally they want to bring some of it home to show their families. I used that desire as a stepping stone for some social emotional learning in this lesson. I went over Thanksgiving with them as a holiday of spending time with loved ones and showing them appreciation. We went over some of their favorite foods that they like to eat with their families. After that intro, the students were taught about collage as a visual art form. I used an example from my SLG assignment the night before to show them how they can cut out shapes and glue them onto paper to "draw" an image. I then showed them an example of a plate of food that i made out of cutout paper on a paper plate. The children were then told to make their favorite foods for their plates, and that we were going to "cook" for our families. The students were so excited and used the extra motivation of doing something that they got to take home and give to a loved one to produce some truly inspired work! After they were done, they were allowed to show their plates of food to their peers as well as tell everyone in the class who they all decided they were cooking for at home. Their explanations of whom and why they were bringing food home to were so insightful and deeper than i was expecting for children their ages. I hope that the rest of my lessons draw from the depths of these children as deeply as this one did, but in different ways.

[kidsmartnola]

Remote Theatre Arts Integration

ISL Dixon 2nd Grade, French & Drama Ms. Odile / Madame Sabrina 

Ms Sabrina’s 2nd grade students have adapted beautifully as I am projected unto the front of the class for our weekly sessions.  In this short video you see my perspective, as I teach from home.  They were doing an entire project on the story of “The Wolf and the Seven Little Goats.”   This is our portion of it...  I teach my part in English and Madame Sabrina teaches in French.  Due to several restrictions this year I am unable to show the work of the students, yet this short video has the feel that we create together in our class.  We have a great time together and have been able to cover a lot of material, in spite of it being a very new way of doing things!

[kidsmartnola]

KID smART Artist of the Month March 2019 Congratulations to our Artist of the Month, Lola S.!

Lola has been selected among 3,000 KID smART students for this recognition. She is a 1st grader at International School of Louisiana - Dixon, where she is learning science through dance.

Ms. Jalisa, the KID smART teaching artist at ISL - Dixon, says, “Lola has blossomed since we’ve started doing movement. She uses her voice much more in class, and has gotten more confident in her answers, even if she makes a mistake! She always tries her best.”

When asked what she likes best about learning science through dance, Lola said, “I really like the dances we make, and the dances Ms. Jalisa teaches us. I like the animal dances because I’ve always wanted to be a kitty!” Keep up the great work, Lola!

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International School of Louisiana-Dixon 2nd Grade, Dance Composition & Visual Art Ms. Jalisa / Ms. Stefanie

Student artists have been working with Ms. Stephanie in visual art on creating shadow puppets, exploring shape and and use of light in performance. With Ms. Jalisa, they were able to put these same concepts into their body! Each student had a chance to explore how their distance to the light affected the images projected for the audience, and improvised a performance for their classmates. We learned that objects get smaller and more focused when they are further away from the light, and can become larger in size or blurrier if brought closer to the light!

[kidsmartnola]

International School of Louisiana-Dixon 2nd Grade, Dance & Visual Arts Ms. Jalisa / Ms. Stefanie

In 2nd grade Visual Arts at ISL-Dixon, student artists are learning about different kinds of lines, and how they can use them to create images of water. Ms. Stephanie led students through an exploration of how to create water lines on paper. Ms. Jalisa then had students turn a body part into the pencil to draw these lines on stage!

Students were able to turn static images into embodied choreography with music, and then share their dance and visual art creation with the class!

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ISL - Dixon Campus 2nd grade, Movement/Theatre + Language Arts Mama Baderinwa /  Ms. Willens

In Language Arts, students are learning to use temporal words to help them understand the sequence of a story. They are also learning how to describe the characters in a story using descriptive words, such as, mean, greedy, and selfish.

In this lesson, the students were exploring ways to create tableau based on the characters in the story, “Fantastic Mr. Fox”. Using temporal words, first, next, then, and finally, they told the story by creating tableau using the elements: expression, level, focus, and direction.

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International School of Louisiana-Dixon 1st Grade, Dance Composition & Science Ms. Jalisa / Mr. Arouna

In science, we have been exploring light, and what happens with light to cause reflections and shadows. After we warmed up, we modeled reflection with light and a mirror, and discussed what happens to the light. Then we had a chance to be the mirror for each other! Students partnered up, and each student had a chance to be a choreographer and a mirror.

We also talked about shadows, and how the light is blocked instead of reflected to cause our shadows to take shape. Since we normally see our shadow behind us when the light is in front of us, student choreographers created dances that their shadow partner would demonstrate behind them.