Arts Integration

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The arts enhance learning, and the arts enhance life.
The arts will be woven throughout the school
and throughout student experiences.

Arts Integration

Art Studio

Performance by the Trey McIntyre Project  

Student Art Achievements

Eye on Our Artists

Ten Lessons the Arts Teach

Arts Integration

The arts are integrated into the various curriculum throughout the school.

This includes visual arts, music, theater and movement/dance. The ability

to think in innovative and productive ways is a survival skill in a world

where we are inundated daily with information. Research has proven that

teaching the “whole child” with the arts not only engages them and

increases their enjoyment of school, but it also addresses important brain

and learning theories to improve their learning of math, literacy, science,

history, etc. Students might draw a picture first and follow with a written

story. They may learn math concepts through rhythm and music. Plays

are developed to create real-life re-creations of a historical event.

7th grade student Elijah Toye recently received an award for his entry in the Idaho Humanities art contest. Artist: Elijah Toye Name of Art: The Value of Equal Artist Statement: My art shows things being treated equally and respectfully. The man and the dragon are equals. They are working together to get to a planet that they want to get to, equally with no discrimination.

Brenda Miller receiving a grant award from the NW Professional Educators to be used for video cameras for her student's class projects. The Idaho Statesman published the following article about the grant:   Garden City Community School Teacher Wins Classroom Grant Award  By Stephanie Eddy Published: 03/18/11  Brenda Miller, a 7th-8th grade teacher at Garden City Community School, has been awarded a classroom grant for $486 from Northwest Professional Educators. The funds will be used to purchase flip video cameras as part of a student literacy project that will require students to create 45-60 second commercials promoting Garden City Community School. NWPE awards $500 teacher scholarships and classroom grants twice a year. Teachers who are new to the profession or their classroom also are eligible for $250 New Classroom Start-Up Grants. All educators are eligible for the awards although NWPE members receive first preference. The next application deadline is March 31. Northwest Professional Educators is a nonprofit, non-union, professional educators’ organization.

Students rehearse their grand finale song  for their upcoming program:  “EMERGENCE: a celebration of our lives,  learning & unlimited potential!”

These quilts are examples of the students’ CLASS art projects. All of the squares were done by the children. The quilt on the left is done through a photo-light sensitivity process (blue sections) by Wren’s 3-4 class and was an integration project with their riparian unit. Thanks to Michelle Rollins for quilting their art pieces. The quilt on the right has drawings as part of Marti’s 1-2 class’s community unit and was quilted thanks to Linda Dixon.

Miss Elizabeth’s kindergarten students  costuming for theater arts.

Students learn through integration of the arts into their core class work as well as during Art Studio sessions.

All students start and end the year with a self portrait which they keep in their permanent portfolios to follow their developmental skills throughout their school years.

Miss Elizabeth’s kindergarten students integrate  music and movement into their mornings.

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Art Studio

ARTs STUDIO SCHEDULE for DaVINCI

Tuesday: Marti (1-2) 1:15-2:00 Pat (1-2) 2:15-3:00

Wednesday: Wren (3-4) 1:10-2:05 Ben (3-4) 2:20-3:10

Thursday: Brenda (7-8) 1:00-2:00 Ryan (5-6) 2:10-3:10

Welcome to the Art Studio at DaVinci Charter School!

We have launched our art studio program this fall, 2011, by starting with the fundamentals of drawing and will be exploring the basic elements of art: Line, Shape, Form, Space, Value, Texture, and Color in all art studio classes (1-8).  We began classes with student discussions on “What is Art?” and “Why Do We Do Art?”  The students came up with amazing concepts and thoughts on this.

Throughout the year we’ll be working on 2d and 3d visual art projects while branching into other areas of art such as story-telling, theater, poetry, and music- depending on individual class curriculum, student and teacher interest, and community involvement.  Because we are arts-integrated, working collaboratively as a school community, our art studio classes remain flexible in order to answer to the inspirations of our classroom/students/teachers. 

We are continuing to build a network of interested artists and parent volunteers to work with our students throughout the year, building towards an all-school final presentation in the spring.  If you have any interest in sharing your artistic talents or pointing us in the direction of others who might be interested in working with our students, please let us know!  We have endless opportunities: art studio classes, classroom projects, all-school community circle presentations, and end-of-year presentations.

You can reach me directly or leave a message at the office 377-0011.  Even if you have indicated interest to your child’s teacher, it is helpful to let me know as well.

It’s great to be back at DaVinci working with your kids!

Sincerely,

Rebecca DeMeritt

rebeccaweeksdemeritt@gmail.com

608-6945

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Performance by the Trey McIntyre Project

Our school was selected for a performance by the Trey McIntyre Project thanks to Tiffiny Coffey finding this opportunity that is available to a few Title 1 schools each year. This internationally known contemporary dance group (which is based in Boise) visited our school Nov. 30 to perform and teach our students about ballet and modern dance. Also, PBS filmed this event, which aired on public television on 12/15/2010.  

Click the link below to see this video aired by PBS:

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/entertainment/july-dec10/boisedance_12-15.html 

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Student Art Achievements

Scotty Martinez won the grand prize in the 2009 Human Rights Art Contest. The Idaho Human Rights Education Center used this work-of-art in their flyer for the performance of "The New American."  

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Eye on Our Artists

Every student at DaVinci Charter School draws their self portrait at the beginning and end of each school year as part of their portfolios. Enjoy watching the changes in their art-abilities as the years progress at DaVinci Charter School through Art Studio lessons - in addition to arts integration throughout the regular classroom curriculum.  

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Ten Lessons the Arts Teach

Although some educators view the arts as closer to the rim of education than to its core, Elliot Eisner argues that the arts are a critically important means for developing complex and subtle aspects of the mind. He outlines "ten lessons" that illustrate how various forms of thinking are evolved, developed, and refined through the arts:

1. The arts teach children to make good judgments about qualitative relationships.
   Unlike much of the curriculum in which correct answers and rules prevail, in the arts, it is judgment rather than rules that prevail.
2. The arts teach children that problems can have more than one solution
   and that questions can have more than one answer.
3. The arts celebrate multiple perspectives.
   One of their large lessons is that there are many ways to see and interpret the world.
4. The arts teach children that in complex forms of problem solving
   purposes are seldom fixed, but change with circumstance and opportunity. Learning in the arts requires the ability and a willingness to surrender to the unanticipated possibilities of the work as it unfolds.
5. The arts make vivid the fact that neither words in their literal form nor numbers exhaust what we can know. The limits of our language do not define the limits of our cognition.
6. The arts teach students that small differences can have large effects.
   The arts traffic in subtleties.
7. The arts teach students to think through and within a material.
   All art forms employ some means through which images become real.
8. The arts help children learn to say what cannot be said.
   When children are invited to disclose what a work of art helps them feel, they must reach into their poetic capacities to find the words that will do the job.
9. The arts enable us to have experience we can have from no other source and through such experience to discover the range and variety of what we are capable of feeling.
10. The arts' position in the school curriculum symbolizes to the young
    what adults believe is important.

SOURCE: Eisner, E. (2002). The Arts and the Creation of Mind, In Chapter 4, What the Arts Teach and How It Shows. (pp. 70-92). Yale University Press. Available from NAEA Publications.

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Revised: 11/01/11