Oulton uses Tuesdays for TAB. She discusses the life and work of a real artist. She has asked some of her artist friends, from fine artists to designers to photographers, to make brief videos discussing what artists do. “The kids have loved seeing real, regular people show us around their studios and tell about their artwork and what it’s like to make art for a living,” said Oulton.
After the lesson, if the students are caught up on their regular work, they are able to work on a choice project using the materials of their choice and they are able to get a pass if they would like to work during recess. Since this new teaching method has been introduced several notable student projects have come out of it including: a sixth grade student rewriting Goldilocks and the Three Bears and using freestanding character panels that can be moved and sequenced to tell the story; a group of sixth grade students trying to improve Progressive Field made a 3D model of the stadium with architectural changes and showed the Indians winning the World Series; a group of fourth grade students created a pie factory from paper and cardboard; a fifth grade student made a bone out of clay for her grandmother who was recently diagnosed with bone cancer; a fifth grade student has written and is currently illustrating a story about her dog living in Mexico, all Day of The Dead themed; and a fifth grade student is currently building a model of the Golden Gate Bridge out of popsicle sticks.
“I am so excited for our students to explore art in this new curriculum,” said Oulton. “The goal was to give students more opportunities for choice in their artwork with the aim of helping them learn to think like artists and it’s working!”
Pictured In Bottom Right Photo: Student J.P. Zimmer, 5th grade.
Chagrin Falls Middle School Students Participate in Annual Spelling Bee
On Thursday, February 2nd, eighth grade student, Luke Volpe, and seventh grade student, Keno Wessels, were the last two students standing after seven rounds of the Chagrin Falls Middle School’s annual spelling bee. They battled word for word for another six rounds until Keno misspelled his word and Luke won the bee with the word, “eupepsia.” To prepare for the event, the entire school participated in a pretest, which was a spelling test given in all of the English classes. From this test, 30 students qualified for the Spelling Bee and were named finalists. The entire school watched as 23 of these finalists competed in the Performing Arts Center.
It took 13 rounds before a winner was announced. Luke will advance to regionals, which will take place at 8:30 a.m. on Saturday, March 11th at Cuyahoga Community College. The winner of that bee will advance to further rounds, ending at The Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington D.C. in May.
Pictured In Top Photo: The 23 participants were eighth grade students Emily Cavanagh; Fiona Garvey; Sam Grobelny; Christian Hoimes; Morgan Kittle; Julius Lelonis; Charlie McLaughlin; Katie Nelson; John Ranieri; Ian Rodgers; Summer Snell; Luke Volpe; Ian Zitney and seventh grade students Sophia Avery; Duncan Bannerman; Trey Brosnan; Lucky Deignan; Will Dietz; Jared Gura; Aly Kaplansky; Wren Opperman; Ben Thurman and Keno Wessels.
Pictured In Bottom Right Photo: Luke is pictured on the left and Keno Wessels (runner up) is on the right.
