A giant red egg

Two weeks ago I was blessed to finish the arts us program for the second summer.  Having the opportunity to work with my kindergarten through eighth graders was truly a treat for me.  One of the greatest things are working with kids is knowing that I can never assume the talents or gifts they come with and their range is so vast.

One of the most exciting things are happening in education watching how creativity in the ours is spilling over into other curriculums.  My goal as an artist educators always to expose the opportunities the crossover the arts and education the arts and science and the arts and math the arts in language arts etc.

Through this summer's program I was able to work with a local poet hip-hop artist Truth Maze, the resident artist/Dancer Sister Patricia, brother Ahanti on the drums, and Brian Grandison who's an incredible theater organizer producer director and drama therapist.  One of the coolest things we were able to do this summer was to collaborate as diverse artists in our curriculum to build a story about youth playing in the playground and encountering a giant red egg. This story was really awesome because the narrative was about allowing the students to support each other through a stream of emotions, ideas and theories about what could possibly be inside of the egg. So a lot of the work was laced with social /emotional learning, it supports and how that process works with a lot of our urban kids.  I ended up working with the youth on creating a giant children's book the help illustrate the story here are a few of the pages.

If you would like to take a closer look at the book you're more than welcome to come to the arts us in St. Paul the book is on display for the next few months and if you wanted the PowerPoint presentation with the books information I can also send it to you if you just inquiring through this blog.