Spooky Radio Plays, part deux

 Students are still in the process of putting together their Spooky Radio Plays. I have been so impressed reading through the scripts and hearing students assemble their audio. On Friday, students in cohort B of Orange class took turns recording Foley - they were helping one another find the perfect noise for each sound effect needed; it was great to see such collaboration! 

I received some synopses from the students in Red and Blue classes, so I wanted to share a few: 

Two girls decide to go on a vacation to the city, when all of a sudden, a building catches fire. Is this just a coincedence, or is it a curse?

Two friends auditioning for a role in a musical.  With a creepy new agent who never shows his face, a director who seems to hate them, and no money, what could go wrong?

Two space warriors, battle it out for the well being of civilians. Will they win, or will the aliens take over?

A girl moved to a suspicious new town with her parents. Everyone in the new town acts weird. It is up to her to find out what is going on and overcome the danger.

A teenager named Jimmy gets sucked into  a Minecraft world and must figure out how to escape .  Luckily Jimmy has been playing Minecraft for over 5 years. Will he escape or be stuck in Minecraft forever?

a couple of kids get bored so they build pirate ships and let their imagination go wild in this spetaclair raido play

Two friends go to a abandond resturant.When they go in one is never found again.

A boy and his father move into this creepy house in the middle of the woods. As there unpacking they see a painting on the wall coverd with dust they clear the dust and.

The mystery gang goes to an amusement park except scooby and shaggy because they were to lazy. It gets really late and the gang hadn't came home so scooby and shaggy went to investigate.

a dad and daughter are exploring an aicent tomb were they find a aincent disease that turns people into zombies,

A boy is randomly teleported into an unknown facility with unknown creatures. Will he survive and escape safely?

Students who are finished early are able to work on an extension assignment, where they create a poster to advertise their radio play! I will be sharing a few of these as they are completed, as well as including them on the Virtual Art Show. I cannot wait to start sharing these radio plays!

Orange and Purple due date: Wednesday, April 21
Red and Blue due date: Wednesday, April 28

Spooky Radio Plays

 All four classes are on different stages of putting together their radio plays, but I have a few synopses to share from Orange and Purple classes. Students did not have to choose a spooky story, but horror seems to be the genre most students are leaning toward.  The plays are coming along so well, and I cannot wait to share them on my Virtual Art Show in a few weeks.

A waitress overhears a murder plot while working in her family's coffee shop. She has to find a way to solve the mystery and catch the killers without becoming their next victim. 

Our story is about a girl who gets kidnapped by a monster and they switched bodies. Everybody was very worried about her because she failed to show up at her friends house for a sleepover and thats when people start worrying about her.

A alien wants to make his dad proud and starts abcucting humans. The humans try to find how to escape.

There is a earthqauke in the city and starts making cracks in the ground. A monster comes out and trys to destroy everything in its path. but then....

Where there is magic there is food. A mystery to find the vansihing snacks in the magic knights hideout. to find the snack charmy to be a detective, an interogator, and a food finatic.

Francis' mom leaves for vacation and she thinks she'll have a fun and normal time with the house to herself. But then she starts hearing footsteps, voices, and creaking stairs. She then starts seeing things and falls down the stairs, but did any of this really happen?

Two boys, Tom and Jamal go exploring. They go into the woods and get lost, and get slowly hunted by Big Bohomb're, the big bad evil guy.  They have to escape the forest and Big Bohomb're.

Two kids try getting on a balloon early and they take of.  There is a thunderstorm in the distance and they don't know how to get down, then in an act of desperation the crash.

The radio play is about a boy who keeps lying for his entertainment until it come back to be a mistake.

Lila and her sister Kia went to a camp where there is ghost that make Lila can't sleep and doesnt lose enery and how one of her friend that can see a ghost and was hounted by it.

Red and Blue classes are in the beginning stages of putting together their radio plays, so I will share some of their synopses next week. I can't wait to hear the finished products!

Elements of Art & Radio Plays

 Happy Friday! It's the last day of school before spring break and I wanted to share some news here. I have made it my "spring break project" to finally put together the current Virtual Art Show - I've been slacking in this department (since my computer has trouble saving artwork when I'm not at school, but I'll be patient and get the job done). Students this semester have seriously inspired me with their creativity and I cannot wait to share everything. I think I'll also include doodle calendars on the Virtual Art Show this year, something I've never done in the past, because students are truly exceeding my expectations with these. Some are drawing on paper, some are drawing on Kami, and some students are even drawing digitally using apps of their choice. 

Classes have officially finished up with the Elements of Art Composition. More students than in the past, I think, decided to create original compositions. By this, I mean more students are incorporating the 7 Elements within their own scene instead of just drawing individual examples. I allow students to make the choice of how they want to present their understanding of this concept, but I'm just impressed by the originality of these students! I posted a few in my last blogpost, but I love sharing art, so here are a few more!

Now that these projects are finished, students are moving on to the Spooky Radio Drama. This was a fan favorite from the previous semester, and I really enjoy it, too. So far today I've had one class start writing their scripts and they're coming up with some pretty creative tales. This one you'll have to wait until the unit is over to hear plays, but I will surely have the Virtual Art Show up and running by then.

Enjoy the sunshine over spring break everyone! 

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!