1. Chicago Arts Partnerships in Education (CAPE) What is arts integration?

2. Arts Integration is teaching and learning in which arts learning and other academic learning are connected in ways in which both the arts learning AND the other academic learning are deepened.

3. A hallway full of identical hand-turkeys is not arts integrated teaching. Arts integrated teaching produces varied responses- such as these drawings and observations by students at Waters School exploring a red-tailed hawk..

4. Big Ideas: Arts integration is not about art activities tacked on to regular instruction to spice it up. Arts integration is not about covering the standards. Arts integration is about uncovering the standards, exploring their mysteries, and engaging the arts to create poetic and metaphoric expressions of those explorations. Arts integration is activated through Inquiry and Big Ideas: challenging themes and interesting questions that bring the content standards to life, that require critical thought and original research.

5. A big idea is an overarching idea that unifies, inspires, and resonates with children, an idea that is rich with possibilities and permits teachers and children to work together in many ways. - Challie, C. (2008) Constructivism across the Curriculum in Early Childhood Classrooms: Big Ideas as Inspiration

6. Making your Big Ideas BIG enough though compelling inquiry: Arts integration will only work if the big ideas are actually interesting to both the adults and the students involved in the integration. The same content can be deadly dull or deeply thrilling, depending on how it is framed. It is worth the time it takes to discover the truly interesting ideas and questions in the content you teach. Provocative, engaging ideas typically explore questions with multiple answers. Examples: Content: Native American Homes: Big idea: Homes little questions: What kinds of houses did ancient Native Americans live in? Big questions: What makes a home a home? What made ancient Native American houses homes? Content: Dinosaurs: Big idea: Extinction Little questions: What were the names of different dinosaurs? Big questions:: Why did dinosaurs become extinct? Activity: Discuss with a colleague a content area that your students (and you) are not responding to. Discuss what Big Ideas might bring this content to life for you and for your students. Report back to the group.