PUPPETS!!!

Angela Olson recently led us through a lesson plan making simple rod puppets. Here are some photos from all of the different grades we teach.

Our third graders made some awesome puppets!!!

Canae is explaining how to staple the body of the puppet together.

 Some students made puppets that were self portraits.

This fifth grader is a natural drawer. It was cool to see what he made!

A cat, a tiger and a cow.

Fifth graders!!!

This guy decided to make the body of his puppet out of paper instead of cloth.

Fourth graders!!!

Both of these guys came up with stories for the puppet characters they created!

EMOTIONS & ART

Emotions and Art

Liza Sylvestre recently led a lesson plan about emotions and art. Each class started with a discussion about emotions - what are the different emotions we feel? How do these emotions show up in artwork? 

Students were exposed to examples of how different artists throughout history have shown emotions through their artwork - either through their subject matter, symbolism, color, or the body language of the figures in their artwork.

Students were asked to make traces of their bodies on large sheets of paper - they were asked to think about how they could use their body shapes to convey an emotion that they wanted to express. 

Then the students had plenty of time to color in their body shapes. Some students included images of things that made them happy, or they used colors that made them feel a certain emotion.

It was pretty cool to see what these young people came up with!

These young ladies drew things inside their traced bodies that they like or that make them happy.

We love how expressive this face is!

We asked this guy why he decided to put a blue circle in the middle of his body. His reply? 

"We talked about how the color blue could represent the feeling 'calm'. And so I made a blue heart because my heart is calm."

VIDEO CAPTIONING

Student: "I am trying to think of, if I could reach into my body and pull out my emotions, what would I see?"

Interviewer: "And what do you think?"

Student: "Um, a lot of bright colors. A lot of different shapes...are coming up."

Interviewer: "Pretty cool!"

USING YOUR BODY TO COMMUNICATE

Canae, who has worked locally with the Ethnic Dance Theater, the Tapestry Folkdance Center, The Southern Theater, and Mixed Blood Theater, led our first dance/movement class in February. 

We asked students to work together to make different geometric shapes with their bodies. How can you make a square using your bodies? A triangle? A star? Then we talked about the different levels used in dance - the low/ground level, the mid level and the air/sky level. Students were asked to use their bodies to show and understand the differences between these levels. What lives on the ground? How does it move? What kinds of things exist on the mid level? How do they move? What lives in the sky? How can you use your body to show the wind blowing?