March Update

 Hello! Every semester I post that I want to update my blog biweekly and every semester I post this same message saying that I keep forgetting to make posts! I'm changing things up and I'm writing this post on a Tuesday so that I don't forget to add one on Friday.

We have been BUSY in creative arts and I&I this semester! Hybrid is in full-swing and students are doing an outstanding job navigating the virtual and in-person classroom. Due to some snow days at the beginning of the term, Red & Blue classes are a week behind Orange & Purple classes, but it hasn't stopped us from making some awesome art! I'll post some examples below, but I'm also working on putting together the start to our spring Virtual Art Show. 

So far this term, students have shared a bit about themselves by creating Personality Maps. 

 Then we discussed "culture" and how a culture is established when a group of people share common interests/beliefs. Each creative arts class has their very own culture, so after a great discussion of what students value most, classes created and voted on a class flag. Here are the winning flags:

In a mini-project, students were introduced to one of my favorite artists, Kehinde Wiley, and practiced portrait drawing with decorative backgrounds, like his artwork. This assignment introduced many students to digital art, and I am beyond impressed with these drawings! 

Most recently, students have been learning about the Elements of Art. Students completed a PlayPosit to learn the definitions, a scavenger hunt to find examples, and finally created an artwork that demonstrated their understanding of all 7 elements. I love this project because it is completely open-ended and students are able to draw whatever they are interested in. Two classes have finished this project entirely, and two others are finishing it up this week.

To start off each class, students work on Doodle Calendars. Some days we don't have any drawing on our agenda, so I want to be able to offer this creative outlet as the start to every class. So far the prompts have been fun holidays in February and March, and the doodles students have been coming up with are extremely creative! Many students are working digitally on Kami (or their own digital program), while others are drawing their doodle calendars on paper.

I hope to start regularly updating my blog, but for more frequent updates, follow me on Twitter and Instagram! Since March is Youth Art Month, I've been posting artwork from both first semester and current students on Twitter to celebrate all my talented students. If you haven't seen it yet, I highly recommend perusing the galleries on the Delaplaine website - the Youth Art Month exhibitions are top notch!

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!

Term II Recap

 It always frustrates me when I remember I forgot to post here and then realize it's been several weeks since I last shared any work! Since I last posted, students completed their Spooky Radio Plays and Synesthesia Artwork - both projects are featured on the Virtual Art Show (click the tab above). I was beyond impressed by the outcome of both projects. Students have been learning to think outside the box and be creative with the materials and supplies they have available to them at home. I especially enjoyed hearing the radio plays that featured family members - something we wouldn't have necessarily gotten to hear if we were currently in the classroom.

I'm sharing a few examples of the synesthesia drawings here, too. Synesthesia is a neurological phenomenon that occurs in only 4% of the population. Their brain connects more than sense together, so people with chromesthesia actually see colors when they hear sounds. In order to simulate this experience, students chose a song and created an artwork showing what they visualized when they listened to it. Some students created an abstract artwork, combining lines, shapes, and colors that conveyed the emotion behind the song, while others created a more literal drawing with imagery from the song. All of the submissions were phenomenal!

In order to plan for their artwork, students had to listen to their song and brainstorm what images or colors came to mind. From there, they created 3 thumbnail sketches where they quickly sketched out any ideas they had for their composition. Next, they narrowed down their idea (some used one thumbnail, while others combined aspects from more than one), and created a rough draft. The student artwork featured below shows a student creating his thumbnails and rough draft on paper, and then he chose a website to create his final artwork digitally.

Currently, students are working on the Latin America Passport project. I am so excited for this one! This project I crafted up with two other creative arts teachers. Students got to choose which pathway they wanted to learn about for this project: visual art, music/dance, or theatre. Students who chose the visual art pathway learned about a few Mexican artists, looking at the artwork they created during the time of the Mexican Revolution. For their final product, students are creating an original artwork that conveys their feelings toward a current event or social issue, while using a similar style, technique, or subject as one of the master artists they chose to research. Students working on the music/dance pathway learned about the Cha Cha and created their own Cha Cha rhythm using a program called Groove Pizza, and are currently learning how to perform the dance. Their final product will be a video of them dancing the Cha Cha to the song they put together. Lastly, the students who chose the theatre pathway learned about alebrijes. They created their own alebrije and wrote a monologue for them to preform that tells the story of a dream they had involving their alebrije. 

Each pathway allows for extreme creativity. My favorite part of this project is that students were able to select which project they felt more comfortable with and interested in. The submissions are due on Wednesday, so I will try to update the virtual art show during winter break. 

If I don't get a chance to post again before the new year - have a wonderful and relaxing winter break!

The End of Term 1

 Today is the last day of Term 1! I am seriously so pleased with how well students have adapted to virtual learning. I miss being able to see my students every day, but we are covering a lot of great stuff in our few sessions each week, and I've been trying to craft up virtual lessons that are both meaningful and fun for students.

I wanted to show off some of the incredible Draw Something! artworks students have produced over the last few weeks. This is a drawing activity that I gave to students often in person, and I recently discovered a digital tool that allows students to draw! Using Kami, students were able to use the lines that I left them and turn them into creative drawings! This is an activity I introduced on our Wednesday Doodle Days, so this is what students were able to come up with in the 30 minute class - here are a few highlights from the submissions:

Recently, students have been working on a spooky radio play project. We listened to some examples of radio plays, like Orson Welles' War of the Worlds, and students are working on creating their own short stories. I have been so impressed while reading through the scripts students are working on, and I can't wait to hear the final product! I am hoping to share some of the recordings on our Virtual Art Show once they are completed.

Elements of Art Presentations

 It's been nearly a month since my last post, but that's because students have been busy, busy, busy! We've had three areas of focus: interpreting artwork, writing strong discussion posts and learning about the Elements of Art. Discussion boards are a great way for students share their thoughts with one another in the virtual setting. Students have been practicing identifying how artwork can tell a story or evoke a mood through context clues within the art and sharing their ideas through discussion posts. I'm really proud to see how well students are taking to this concept, as it is one that will follow them throughout creative arts, and it is closely related to identifying mood or theme within literature, like they do in ELA. 

In the last couple of weeks, students have been working on becoming experts on one Element of Art. The elements are the building blocks of art, and each class was divided into 7 teams (one for each element) to research and create a slideshow to present their findings with the class. Students yet again have been doing a fantastic job collaborating with one another and making these presentations together even though they are working from separate locations. Below I'm sharing a few highlights from the presentations:

Red and Blue classes finished giving their presentations on Monday, so their Elements of Art quiz will be on Monday, October 26th. Orange and Purple classes will finish giving their presentations on Friday, so their quiz will be on Friday, October 30th. We are going to have a review day in class before the quiz, and I've also provided students with various study sources.