Tuesday, February 23rd we had the opportunity to show our “Mustang Pride” at the District School Board Meeting. Third grade scouts, made us proud by formally presenting the colors and leading the Pledge of Allegiance. The faculty honored Landon Thomas as our employee of the year and recognized Elizabeth Lopez for her volunteer work in the kindergarten classroom.
We chose to feature three areas of focus from our current School Improvement Plan. First, Mrs. Warrick spoke eloquently about our ARTS program and the benefits for students. Mrs. Haught highlighted the school’s differentiated instruction efforts and invited three fifth grade students to share the process involved in an extension project. Our closing number featured the Third Grade class singing a song about empathy that the faculty felt expressed our focus on building student/teacher rapport this year. I believe the School Board and District personnel received a clear picture of the faculty and staff dedication, and they saw what a wonderful student body we work with here at Escalante Valley School.
Second Grade Comics
The Second Grade Students created and illustrated their own stories!
Escalante Valley Elementary and the Arts!
Art Presentation for School Board
by
Mrs. Warrick
My first graders look forward to art all week long. Isn’t it great when children like and want what is actually healthy and good for them? In art with Mrs. Woolsey they get to make color wheels, learn the shapes of trees, and go outside to observe and understand perspective for themselves. They also learn to use shape and filling space. They learn what a landscape is and what a portrait is. They learn about line and shape and color. They get to see works of art from famous artists of different times and cultures. They get to experiment with pastels, watercolors, tempera paints, chalk, and other mediums. They get to make clay pots and paint them. In the fall, they observed their world and drew trees with colored leaves. In the winter they again made trees, but without leaves and with snow on the branches. Another time they painted snowmen using white paint and sponges on blue paper. For Valentines Day they learn about symmetry, stenciling, and overlapping design. With art, my first graders develop eye hand coordination, learn to observe the world around them, learn about other people and how they saw the world, and learn to be free-thinking and creative themselves. What my first graders don’t know is that Mrs. Wolsey has used our art time and experience to teach the first grade core of symmetry, the seasons, plants, water, and social studies. I know that students will work hard all week long and attend school even on Friday afternoons in order to not miss their art opportunity. Best of all, it makes them happy, satisfied, and fulfilled. Art helps them discover parts of themselves and their world that they didn’t know before. And they find excitement when they are able to let their eyes and minds see something through an artistic perspective, or what I call-- "The eye of an artist."
Though I see the first grade art experiences first hand, the same things are happening all over the school. Bulletin boards are filled with children’s art. Our 3rd grade is drawing pictures of bodies in action to learn about verbs. They have also used their art skills to create flags of the world for a bulletin board about the countries and cultures of the world. And, while Orff instruments are used my many grades to learn about rhythm and patterning, when the 4th grade class used them to create their own songs to accompany weather poems, they were also learning about the weather, teamwork, and cooperation. The 4th grade also used a song to learn the continents and then performed it for the 3rd grade, which helped that class learn them also. The 4th grade is also using comic strip skills to create graphic novels. The 5th grade is creating art using different mediums and displaying it on their book club blog. We see art lessons spilling over into student directed work as our extension groups choose to incorporate things they have learned in their art to augment their advanced learning projects. Our library walls are lined with posters of famous art works next to student works of the same styles. And the library has ordered more artist biographies as the students learn about the artists' lives and works.
Because of the isolated and rural location of our community, we feel that our school needs to be a primary source of the arts for the children. It is up to us to give the children exposure to the arts and the works of artist because many of the students have so little interaction and opportunity with the world. We have a couple different “Arts Nights” through the year in order to involve the families and community and to give the children a chance to show what they are learning and doing. We try to involve the children in all levels of planning and participation. Often, the students will write, choreograph, and compose their own projects. When they do, they enjoy it more and this can be seen on their faces and in the animation of their performances and outcome of their works. They are proud of what they do, because they really did it themselves.
An understanding of the arts is a large part of “being educated.” No one can claim to be truly educated who lacks basic knowledge and skills in the arts. The arts are all around us in our everyday lives. We need to understand the arts in order to understand ourselves.
As educators, we know how wonderful it is when children like and want what is actually healthy and good for them!”
