This year, Golden Hill Elementary is hosting two student teachers both completing their elementary hours. This week, they combined their creative talents to come up with an engaging activity for third grade students that utilized their musical ears and artistic eyes!

To enhance their networking and collaboration skills, their cooperating teachers Nick Camia and Kristin Risedorph encouraged them to work together on a lesson that covered topics in both art and music.

The student teachers discussed with the students how in Pixar’s “Inside Out”, the different characters have a color associated with them, as well as some mannerisms and characteristics such as the sound of the character’s voice. They guided students to connect each emotion to a color, tone and general disposition.

Students were then assigned one of three pieces of classical music and asked to figure out what emotion they were hearing. They then had to work together to create a piece of art with colors, shapes and images that they felt matched the music they were hearing.

Both student teachers felt that the joint lesson was a huge success. The students created amazing pieces of art that accurately conveyed their emotions to the viewer.

“I feel so lucky to be in the Florida School District,” one of the student teachers, Olivia Charleston, shared. “The students are so amazing and the teachers have created such a supportive environment. I feel safe to step out of my comfort zone.”

“Olivia and Shannon did a great job collaborating on their lesson. Right from their first meeting, the girls found a common thread between art and music and ran off to the races,” said Kristin Risedorph, Charleston’s cooperating teacher. “They managed their time together and asked for feedback as they went along. Seeing the cooperation was great! Schools really work when we all listen to each other and work as a team!”