Welcome to Semester 2 students!

 Hello and welcome to all my new students and their families! I am so excited to meet all of you this week. Creative arts is such a fun class that I absolutely LOVE teaching, so I hope you all enjoy this experience, too! 

This is my third year teaching at OMS (6th year teaching overall), and I also instruct the color guard at OHS. I earned both my BA (2015) and MS (2020) from Hood College here in Frederick, and graduated from TJ High, too, so it's been pretty neat being able to teach in the same area I grew up - I actually attended Oakdale Elementary when it first opened! My degree is in visual art, but I enjoy all the arts. One of my favorite hobbies is attending live theatre; I love musicals and will often listen to musical soundtracks in the car. 

Creative arts is a fantastic class for several reasons, and has been beneficial to students throughout virtual learning and COL as a creative outlet. Most lessons allow students a variety of choices, allowing them to cater to their interests and strengths. If you take a look at the Virtual Art Show tab, you'll be able to look at artworks from all my years of teaching - the two most recent art shows demonstrate the creativity and innovation that students have displayed from home.

I'm excited to embark on this Hybrid journey with you all this semester!

Ms. Strasser

End of Semester 1

 The first semester has officially ended! I am so proud of all of my students for successfully finishing the first half of the school year all while learning virtually! I know everyone (including myself) went into the first day of school a bit nervous for this new learning platform, but everyone did a fantastic job in creative arts. Now that the semester is over, I am spending my day finishing up with term 2 grades and collecting artwork to display on the virtual art show. I am going to add artwork from Art of Africa this week, and I am also working on putting together the class cookbooks.

I was so excited for the final project of the semester! Since we started the year talking about personal cultures, I wanted students to reflect and think about their personal cultures again. In doing this, students selected one dish that represents a culture they belong to and created a recipe card to share with the class. The best part of this is that each of the recipes are going to be assembled into a slideshow cookbook for students to keep and remember their creative arts class by! I have been so inspired by several of these recipes, I might even try a couple myself! 

It has been an absolute pleasure teaching these four classes this semester. I told students on our last day that I hope to see them in the school soon so we can wave to each other in the hallway. I look forward to when I'll be able to meet each student in person for the first time. Thank you all for being a part of my class this year. Keep in touch & happy art making! 

Winding Down - Art of Latin America and Art of Africa

 I seriously cannot believe the first semester is almost over! Students have been working diligently on their two most recent projects. Art of Latin America projects were turned in right before winter break and Art of Africa projects are due this weekend. I updated the virtual art show with some of the Latin America projects (I'm waiting on a few more students to approve their videos to be added), so check them out on the virtual art show tab! 

Students blew me away with their Latin America projects! Most students selected the visual art pathway, but no two artworks were the same. Frida Kahlo and Jose Guadalupe Posada were the most common artists chosen for this project, as their style of art was so iconic and easy to incorporate into artworks (I did this project along with my students, and also chose Kahlo because I liked the idea of creating a self portrait). The pandemic was a hot topic for artwork; many students incorporated masks or an illustration of the coronavirus.  Here are a few samplings from the submissions:

My favorite part of this project was that students were given choice as to which pathway they wanted to follow. Although many students selected visual art, a few students in each class selected one of the performing arts options, allowing their performance skills to shine! Check out the virtual art show to see some of the submissions from the performing categories. 

Students are working on another choice-based project, focusing on the art of Africa. This time, the project was divided into two weeks, where students had to choose one art form for each week, resulting in two mini-projects! Students who chose dance had to create a 30-second video of them performing a dance inspired by traditional African dance choreography. Students who chose music had to create a 30-second video of them performing a rhythm inspired by traditional African instruments. Although some students did have drums at home, many students used found objects, such as buckets, chairs, boxes, and pans, to create their music with. Students who chose theatre had to act out a 30-second (or more) scene from an African folktale. Some students decided to retell the story as a monologue, while others acting alongside family members to recreate the story. Lastly, students who chose visual art created a drawing or 3D mask inspired by traditional African masks. 

Since these projects are being turned in this weekend, I will hopefully have the Art of Africa projects added to the virtual art show by the end of next week. For the last few days of class coming up, I have some really neat activities planned, so stay tuned!