Since 1998, Loyal Heights has had a thriving art docent program. Each month, trained parent volunteers, go into the classrooms to teach art lessons and do art projects with the L.H. students. Lessons introduce the students to great works of art and artists, teach art concepts, build students art vocabulary and get them talking about art ideas. ‘Everyone is an artist and everyone can share their ideas about art’ is the approach that the art docents take. Our goal is to open children’s eyes to art and make them art appreciators and well as develop their art skills and creativity so that they will always believe they are artists.
Student’s artwork, which is process-driven (not product-driven), can be seen adorning the hallways of our school. Our spring Art Walk showcases the students art in an art show atmosphere complete with a live professional string quartet. Children see the value we place on art and feel proud of their work when they see it attractively displayed and appreciated.
Loyal Heights has become known for this program and is frequently approached by other parents interested in starting something similar at their schools.
The art docent program is something we are all proud of.
Loyal Heights Spanish Program Goals:
To introduce foreign language learning as a concept.
To learn basic words and phrases in the target language.
To develop careful listening skills for unfamiliar sounds.
To develop cultural and linguistic awareness.
To appreciate the value of communication in another language.
To enhance understanding of the English language.
General Instructional Objectives:
Instruction in grades K-5 introduces students to the pronunciation and intonation patterns, and basic vocabulary of Spanish while developing elementary listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills.
In our school setting, the development of receptive skills (listening, mimicking and simple reading) should precede language production practice (conversing and writing) in an alternating or cyclical pattern.
Instructional Technology:
Technology at Loyal Heights is integrated into each classroom curriculum as a tool to enhance student learning. The teachers are supported with a technology specialist at the school as they develop and create technology rich lessons.
The Loyal Heights Technology Outcomes are used as guidelines for students meeting technology standards at each grade level.
Technology Hardware:
Each classrooms has four to eight student computers. Each classroom also has access to two laptop carts and a cart of 30 alphasmarts used for keyboarding and word processing.
Each classroom teacher has a presenting station (pressenter hooked up to document camera and Internet) to present technology rich lessons for the students.
The classroom teachers also have access to the library computer lab.
The AIR committee met last year and decided on a sculpture theme, in honor of the opening of the Olympic Sculpture Park in downtown Seattle, and the kids are in for some exciting events as the recycled-art-themed Spectacular Sculpture gets underway. “My hope is that it’s going to open students’ eyes to all the art that’s around them in the community…and to realize the richness that art brings to our lives” AIR Committee Chair Susan Ovens says. “For the recycled art [piece of the residency], to realize that one of the wonderful things about art is that you can create it out of old materials that you find around the house.”
What IS the Artist-in-Residence program?
AIR brings a different teaching artist to the school every year to work with kids on exploring a facet of the arts, with a multicultural focus. Last year, poet Laura Gamache led kids on a writing adventure, and the quality and volume of the poems produced by the children at Loyal Heights was inspiring. They were displayed in the cafeteria during Art Walk, and kids read their poems in front of an audience. In past years, kids have taken Taiko drum lessons and made Raku pottery, learned about jazz, and made masks and noisemakers in a Brazilian-themed residency that culminated in a high-spirited parade through the neighborhood.
Given our school’s tremendous fund-raising power, the PTA agreed to fully fund AIR this year. This means that we didn’t have to apply for grants or charge kids for their participation in the sculpture park field trip (more on that later).
In past years, the residency has been squeezed into a couple of weeks, but last year the committee experimented with stretching the residency out over a couple of months instead to ease the scheduling burden on teachers. The extended residency worked so well that we’re doing it again this year. Spectacular Sculpture will run January-March, with the artist visiting older grades first, followed by the primary grades. She’ll be working with each classroom for five days.
Who’s our artist this year?
Our artist this year is Olympia resident Diane Kurzyna, a visual artist who specializes in recycled materials. She’s worked with elementary populations throughout the South Sound, and has over 20 years’ experience working with young people in other situations that include museums, summer camps and art schools.
She’s been the curator for the annual Recyled Art and Fashion Show since 2005 (sponsored by the ReStore at the New York Fashion Academy in Ballard). The show runs Oct. 13-Nov. 10 this year, and she suggests that students and staff visit the exhibit to see the “myriad ways that Puget Sound region artists transform throwaways into art.”
She’s also had solo exhibitions at Seattle Pacific University and the Evergreen State College Gallery, been artist-in-residence at the Museum of Glass in Tacoma and the State Capital Museum in Olympia, and has been part of numerous juried exhibitions since 2003.
She’ll lead kids in an “All About Me” recycled art sculpture project at Loyal Heights.
What else is going on?
- Field trip: All students took a field trip to the Olympic Sculpture Park in October, which included a walk through the park and a workshop. Because AIR is fully funded by the PTA, kids didn’t have to pay for the field trip
- Sculpture of the month: Check out our AIR bulletin board, located in the hall. We’ll be posting information about the sculpture of the month, a nearby sculpture that parents can visit with their kids. Take a picture of your kids by the sculpture and pop it in the AIR box, set against the wall inside the work room door, for posting on the bulletin board or possible publication in the BeaverTales! We encourage you to submit pictures of your kids next to any sculpture, too, not just the sculpture of the month.
- BeaverTales: Watch the BT for more articles about AIR, family field trip suggestions, kid fun in the kids’ pages, and information about the sculpture of the month.
Get involved!
- Ideas: Just about the time Diane starts working with the kids, the committee will be starting to think about next year’s residency. Do you have a great idea? Contacts in the art community? “We’re looking to provide the students with as much diversity as we can in terms of their art experience at LH,” Susan says. “Next year we’ll be looking for something much different.”
- Volunteer: Two parent volunteers per class will be needed during the residency. To volunteer, sign up via Big Blue (new families), or contact Susan.
- Workshop for adults: Diane led a hands-on recycled arts workshop for the art docents on Wednesday, Oct. 10.
