Integration of Mathematics and Arts in the 3rd Grade of Elementary School

Cross-curricular integration is one of the many modern approaches to teaching, which aims to connect goals, contents and concepts. Contrary to the traditional way of teaching, where each subject is strictly separate, contents are in this case intertwined and also taught in a more comprehensive way. Different connections to our prior knowledge or that of a different field result in more successful learning and knowledge of a greater benefit. It makes it easier for students to remember the contents if the emotional connotation is also taken into account. For intensive retention, it is important to engage both brain hemispheres: the left being responsible for logic and spatial perceptions and the right assuring creativity and sensuality. Integrating mathematics and art, on the other hand, is not something new as these two fields have already been linked together by globally well-known artists, such as Leonardo da Vinci, Piet Mondrian, Wassily Kandinsky and Slavik Jablan. In the theoretical part of this thesis, we present the reasons for cross-curricular integration, its aims, advantages, teacher competencies for such way of work, cross-curricular planning, different approaches and models along with the divisions of cross-curricular integration on various levels. We also demonstrate the influence of cross-curricular integration on the brain functions and add some examples of integrating the subjects of mathematics and art in various works of art. In the empirical part of the thesis, we studied different connections between mathematics and art in the third grade of elementary school on the topic of fractions of the whole. We chose two classes. One was chosen as a control class, where we taught the subject matter the way we are used to. Conversely, in the other, i.e. experimental class, we integrated the contents of mathematics with those of art. We were interested whether the students whose classes were based on cross-curricular integration were more motivated for work than the students who were taught in a traditional way. We also wanted to research whether the students of the experimental class were more successful at doing maths exercises by the end of our study than their peers from the control class. Throughout the experiment we observed and kept record of our work and also checked if we had spent more time planning for one session of cross-curricular integration than planning for one regular session of a random subject