Diversity Quilt at Don Bosco Technical Academy

The Diversity Quilt started last year at Don Bosco and featured on this blog LINK was installed on the main floor of Don Bosco by Ms. Post who co-ordinated this project with 6th grade teachers in all content areas. The concept for this quilt was "diversity" and 6th grade students in all content areas created individual squares that illustrated their unique tastes, hobbies and cultures.  Then the individual pieces were installed next to each other in the school corridor to create one large quilt made up of all the diverse pieces.

This Diversity Quilt was accompanied by the creation of a Diversity Cookbook led by WP PIR Robin O'Brien in conjunction with numerous Don Bosco teachers in all grades and content areas. The cover was illustrated by one of art teacher Patty Kaminsky's art students.

Engineering Design at Don Bosco Technical Academy

At Don Bosco Technical Academy Ms. Post's 6th grade science class designed structures to hold a raw egg during a "drop." This STEAM lesson challenged her students to design their structures in creative ways in order to protect the raw egg during a ten foot drop from the top of a school stairwell onto the floor below.  Materials used for this lesson included cardboard, scissors, masking tape, bubble wrap, egg cartons, and raw eggs.  Ms. Post encouraged her students to work collaboratively to invent a structure using the engineering design process for the egg drop.

Students were thrilled to test their engineering structures in the stairwell at Don Bosco. Art PIR Triada Samaras and PIR Robin O'Brine from Willai Paterson University observed the students testing their structures. Many eggs made it unharmed down to the floor from the ten foot drop above. Back in the science classroom, Ms. Post instructed her students to answer questions in their science journals about the project.

In the next phase of this egg drop project students will design structures for a steeper egg drop from the roof of the school building! Stay tuned....

Arts Integration at Don Bosco Technical Academy

Arts Intergration plans are blooming at Don Bosco Technical Academy!

Art teacher Patty Kaminski has begun a Memory Project with her student working with young people from Nigeria.

"The Memory Project is dedicated to promoting intercultural awareness, friendship, and kindness between children around the world through the universal language of art."

LINK

In this Portrait Program Ms. Kaminsky's middle school students will create portraits as special gifts for children facing substantial challenges around the world.

Social studies teachers at Don Bosco are introducing themes related to Nigeria and to Africa to collaborate with Ms. Kaminsky's project. In Mr. Palen's class, for example, students are learning about the origins of humans in Africa and their migration throughout the continent. In another example, Art PIR Triada Samaras is working with Ms. Kaminsky to design a collaborative, student-generated, large-scale art inspiration project inspired by the Nigerian artist El Anatsui who now works in Ghana. El Anatsui is widely known for his large scale collaborative art work using recalled materials.  Teachers throughout the school will be invited to participate in this collaboration. The art materials to be used are part of the Geraldine R. Dodge Grant for Arts Integration. The grant's focus this year is on: "Diversity."


 In addition, Mr. Palen and 6th grade social studies teacher, Ms. Muniz, attended a recent WP PDS School workshop called the Smithsonian Learning Lab where they learned about the vast resources available at this lab. Open to all teachers from the WP PDS School network, the workshop was entitled: 
"Black Panther and More: Using the Smithsonian Learning Lab to Go Global and Bring the World into your Classroom."  All teachers were encouraged to sign up for a free account at the Learning Lab: LINK 

  Ms. Muniz shared her experience at with Arts Integration PIR Triada Samaras last week.  She stated that the Smithsonian Learning Lab materials are very helpful to teachers who, like herself, are given no textbook to use with their students in their content area.  "From the Learning Lab," she explained, "I am able to create curriculum materials for my students."

Arts Integration at School 12

Arts Integration is thriving at School 12!

In this arts integration project, the third graders at School 12 were reading about the Native Americans and the history of the Ojibwa tribe and dream catchers. 

"Dream catchers can be traced back to the Ojibwes. The Ojibwe people started the phenomenon and over time, dream catchers became adopted by other tribes, cultures and even Nations."

LINK

 An art activity was incorporated (creating dreamcatchers) to provide students with a more authentic experience for studying the history of the Native American Ojibwa tribe and dream catchers that they were reading and writing about.  WPU PIR Mrs. Sandler had the students create dream catchers with recycled cardboard, string, beads and feathers. 

First they measured and cut out cardboard circles.

 

Students were able to weave in a pattern that left spaces for the good dreams to pass through the openings with yarn.They also added beads and feathers.

 The teacher followed up this lesson with a literacy lesson showing realistic fiction, sentence sequence format, and critical analysis of the text.

'Arts integration seems to be the best form of differentiation out there because it taps into so many different interests and abilities and forms of learning.' LINK

This kindergarten lesson (below) was also done at School 12 in conjunction 
with WP Arts Integration PIR Simone Sandler.  First classroom teacher Mrs. Pierre read her students a book about a cat . 

Next, Mrs. Sandler went over the sight words in the story as the students created a three dimensional foldable.