Paterson School 9 visits the Newark Museum

Second grade students from Paterson School #9 visited the Newark Museum for two guided tours.This school field trip was part of the Geraldine R. Dodge arts Integration grant at the school.

Students were introduced to the pottery and textiles of the Native American. people. The guide allowed the students to touch a moccasin with elaborate bead work.  Students were able to create clay pottery bowls using the coil method.

Touring the  various galleries of the museum students were excited to see art work  created in such a variety of  styles.

Students were even able to observe the symbolism in some early primitive paintings. In the afternoon, students were guided through the Ballantine House and were surprised at how the house was furnished in a  Victorian  style.

An Arts Integration Field Trip to Ben Shahn Galleries at WPU!

As part of the Dodge Art Integration grant program, students from the Don Bosco Technology Academy and New Roberto Clemente School attended separate field trips to William Paterson University’s University Galleries at the Ben Shahn Center for Visual Arts and Power Art Building in December., for their on-going* art integration/ social studies project.  

 

Kristen Evangelista, Galleries Director, took the students on a gallery tour of "For Home and Country:  World War 1 Posters from the Newark Library".  "Curated by WP Professor George Robb,  this exhibition showcases 26 Propaganda Posters to coincide with the United States World War 1 Centennial."

 


The students will be learning about World War I soon in their class at Don Bosco.*  At the WPU gallery, they learned about how enemies were depicted in propaganda posters at that time.  

Afterwards, WPU Art Professor Juan Robles conducted a workshop pertaining to creating a propaganda poster in the form of a collage.

 

After this workshop, students visited the Power Arts Building and toured the facility with WPU MFA students seeing the state of the art robot , three-d printer room, computer room, virtual reality room, painting, printmaking, and ceramics studios, and more.

Art integration clearly supports both social studies and the arts - enriching students’ understanding about War World I in many different ways, in addition to creating a collage and poster.  

"Arts Integration is an interdisciplinary teaching practice through which non-arts and arts content is taught and assessed equitably in order to deepen students' understanding of both"(NJPSA/FEA & Dodge, 2017).

*Recently, students just completed their large-scale Thomas Jefferson grid-art project with the help of their art teacher at Don Bosco Ms. Kamisnki, and their WPU Professor in Residence, Professor Samras.  The social studies teacher Ms. Simmen will follow-up with smaller Founding Father portraits in her class.

Arts Integration Collaboration: Kite Video. Ms. Conyers w Ms Sandler

At Paterson School 12, 4th grade teacher Ms. Anissa Conyers created a unit on "kites". The students read several books about kites and researched the history of kites through the years. Then, students identified famous people who have flown kites. Next, Simone Sandler, WPU Art PIR created two types of kites out of paper and tissue paper with her classes. After the kites were finished the students went outside to fly them. These students were also studying weather systems and created an anemometer to measure the wind speed.  At the culmination of the lesson students reflected on the problems that were encountered in the flying process. Enjoy the video below which documents this entire process!

Above:  Arts Integration Collaboration: Kite Video. Teacher: Ms. Anissa Conyers/William Paterson University Art Professor in Residence: Simone Sandler thanks to a WPU Arts Integration Grant from the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation

Arts Integration: Lego Workshops for Teachers at Paterson Schools 9 and 12!

Simone Sandler, Art Professor-in-Residence PIR from WPU, held workshops for teachers at Paterson School #9 and School #12 on Legos. Twenty-nine teachers participated by experimenting with hands-on projects that could be easily integrated into their curricula.

If designed thoughtfully and intentionally, Lego blocks can be used to encourage students to create a visual concepts in math, science, literacy and engineering. Additionally, Legos foster spatial reasoning and allow students to learn while they play. 

Skills Lego develop :

1. Lego provides tools that develop lateral thinking in a fun environment
2. It teaches kids to think in three dimensions
3. It improves literacy as kids work with instructions
4. It develops problem-solving, organization, and planning by construction
5. It improves creativity
6. It enhances communication and critical thinking
7. It boosts kids motor development.  LINK 

Some of the concepts explored at the workshop with Lego blocks were: multiplication, division, fractions, illustrating a story, creating architecture, simple  machines, robotics and even coding with Legos. In learning to code with Lego students discovered the binary alphabet where each letter, both upper and lower case, is assigned a set of numbers containing 1’s and 0’s. This is an example showing that when students use hands-on learning they are more apt to retain the information presented to them.

 photo credit: David J. Morgan on Flickr

A Founding Father Comes Alive at a Science Fair at Don Bosco!

This fall, an arts integration project combining social studies (American history and civics) and art has led to a new large-scale art work* for Don Bosco Technical Academy (DB).  William Paterson University Art Professor-in-Residence (PIR) Triada Samaras directed this collaboration with teachers and students at this first year Geraldine R. Dodge -funded "arts integration" middle school.

This art work, created mainly in Ms. Kaminski's art class with her students, is an image of Thomas Jefferson selected by students in the next-door classroom where Ms. Simmen's social studies students are studying American history and civics elsewhere.  At the moment they are learning about the "Founding Fathers."  The art PIR demonstrated how to use the grid method to achieve the desired ends, helping these teachers envision, plan and actualize this project together, using relatively inexpensive art materials: black and white construction paper, colored pencils, and glue.  First she edited the photo. Next she cut the image into tiny squares. Then, she gave the students 9 x 9 inch square white paper and asked them to reproduce the squares. 

The art teacher worked hard over many days with mainly eighth graders to  produce the needed drawings, eighty squares in total.  She emphasized the need for the students to perceive the correct proportions and color/tonal scheme of each tiny piece of the overall image. The social studies teacher learned about the artistic grid process as it occurred by observing and conversing with the art teacher and Art PIR. For example, she learned that the living artist, Chuck Close, uses the grid extensively in his own work.

Subsequently, she decided her social studies students would create smaller "Founding Father" grid images later this month in her classroom. She will also consult with the art teacher about how to integrate a South American street artist's aesthetic into this project.
Ms. Kaminski (left) hangs the large-scale art work and Ms. Simmen (below) stands in front of the art work.

Both of these teachers are also engaging with the National History Day Theme: "Conflict and Compromise" in their classrooms. Ms. Simmen plans a National History Day project submission with social studies students.  Historically, Paterson students have performed well in this highly regarded competition.

In the coming week, a field trip will be held. Both teachers will take their students to the WPU University Galleries to see a WWI Propaganda Poster Exhibit with Director Kristen Evangelista and some of the students' parents.  After the gallery visit these students will create hands-on art works with WPU Art Professor Juan Robles.
Below, the Thomas Jefferson mural hangs with a sign detailing the process for parents on Report Card night at DB, so that other teachers in the school might learn this method as well.

On Report Card night last week at DB, parents were invited to the media center to see the new Thomas Jefferson arts integration project together with other student art work as well as impressive student science fair projects nearby. Below are a few of these science projects:

*The large-scale grid drawing at Don Bosco of Thomas Jefferson was inspired by another large-scale art mural of Albert Einstein created by art teacher, Ms. Monica Aramayo, who works at New Roberto Clemente School/NRC.  NRC is another site where Professor Samaras is a WPU PIR funded by Dodge. This is NRC's third grant year and DB's first grant year. Thus the Art PIR plans to mirror some of the "best arts-integration practices" from NRC to DB, creating a connection between the teachers and the students at both schools.