During April
Vacation, Charter Corps partnered with CityArts to run sixteen different
classes focused around Earth Day, saving the earth, and using recycled
materials to create beautiful art. The students who attended these classes
ranged from ages 8 to 14 and were broken into four different groups that
circulated to four different classes a day.
Students were
given the opportunity to use their creativity to create lots of different art
projects. Members of CityArts Americorps team lead students in classes where
they created musical instruments, inventions, machine and puppets out of
various recycled materials. They were also given the opportunity to create
Golden Records based on things important to them and the earth. Students
painted the cover and found sounds that represented the sounds of the earth.
Here are some of
the activities from the classes run by the Charter Corps members:
Rachel’s class
was focused around Dr. Seuss’s book “The Lorax.” This story tells the reader
about a greedy Once-ler who destroys the environment by
taking all the Truffala trees. The book ends with the Once-ler encouraging the
reader to do their part to replant the trees. Students were given the
opportunity to paint a banner exploring the world of the Lorax (who spoke for
the trees) and in the middle displayed the slogan, “Take care of the trees,
PLEASE!! Students also created posters telling people to save the earth and not
pollute.
In Cyntoya’s
class students were able to create terrariums and doorstops/paper weights out
of rocks they had found in Highlanders backyard.
In Kirsten’s
class the students explored different ways to save and help the earth. Students
created posters, skits and poems telling people different ways to help the
Earth. At the end of the class students put all of their different creations
together into a Public Service Announcement. To conclude the whole class
students got to plant flowers and vegetables into a newspaper pot.
Nellie and
Lissette ran classes where students were able to use recycled newspaper and
magazines and reuse them to make something new. Students created coasters and
picture frames, bracelets and eyeglass cases out of recycled newspaper,
magazines and paper. They also made mosaics on paper plates.
In Nicole’s’
class students were given the opportunity to create piggy banks out of plastic
bottles with air dry clay. Students created cats, dogs, people and of course a
couple of pigs! The next project that students did was make bottle cap sculptures
by gluing bottle caps of all shapes, sizes and colors to canvas. CityArt
students use their imagination to create castles, people, and superheroes just
to name a few.
During Natalie’s
classes students created artwork using natural materials. Students created city
‘mosaics’ using materials found in the backyard of Highlander, made paints with
spices and powders, did fruit pressing, and even made their own playdough and naturally
dyed it with blueberries. You can find the recipe for the playdough at: http://www.minieco.co.uk/natural-dye-for-homemade-playdough/.
During the class “Tis
the Season” run by Leah students learned about the reasons for the seasons as
well as appreciating the aesthetic quality of each one. Some of our activities included
drawing similar scenes from different seasons and making colorful paper flowers
to celebrate spring. The students learned how to write haikus, and several of
our seasonal haikus were performed at the final exhibit. The students favorite
activity from the class was making the paper flowers. Here are the instructions
and some picture examples: http://www.busybeekidscrafts.com/Paper-Flower-Decorations.html Feel free to try this easy
project at home.
John ran a class
where students were given the opportunity to create posters about saving the
earth through screen printing. The students made three different sets of posters. The first run created four large stencil-designed posters to raise environmental awareness, including two for the Keep Elmwood Beautiful cleanup campaign. The other two projects used an emulsion process to transfer the students' drawings to the screens. One run printed informational posters on four endangered animals native to the Rhode Island area while for the last one, students made their own postcard sized tips for greener living.
Jill and Alenoush
ran a class where students were given the opportunity to paint endangered
animals from Rhode Island and paint a picture of what the Earth should look
like and then they attached an overlay of charcoal where students added litter
and pollution that people add the make the environment ugly.
Each class was also
given the opportunity to go out with one of their teachers participate in the
litter clean-up competition. This was a great way for the students to see how
they themselves can help the community around them.
