I just spent four wonderful days at NAEA 14, here in my hometown of San Diego. I attended a ton of sessions, including a pre-conference tour and a hands-on workshop. Here’s a peek at what I saw and learned.
Friday, March 28: Pre-Conference Tour of Art Program and Murals and Zamorano Fine Arts Academy
Art teacher/art ed blogger Don Masse led this tour of his public elementary school’s remarkable art program. Zamarano Fine Arts Academy employs five (!) visual art educators for 1400 (!) students from transitional kindergarten-grade 5. The school has a clay program, photography, fashion design, and much more. Don’s 5th graders create an annual ‘legacy’ mural…in addition, we saw many other outdoor artworks, including painted windows. See lots more of Don’s contemporary-art inspired projects at his blog, shite brite zamorano.
Monday, March 31 Shadow Puppets workshop with Grace Hulse
I have wanted to teach a shadow puppet unit for years, but never really knew how. Grace Hulse’s workshop was a great intro. Her Baltimore second graders put on a shadow puppet play every year.
We cut black tagboard into interesting animal shapes. Ms. Hulse encouraged us to create openings in the puppets using craft knives and decorative punches. We taped lace doilies or colored vellum over the openings to add interest. We could create articulated limbs with small brads.
We also learned about inexpensive materials to make a small theater.
If you want to learn more, Ms. Hulse highly recommends the book Worlds of Shadow: Teaching with Shadow Puppetry
In addition, Ms. Hulse’s students created an iMovie trailer using photos of shadow puppet illustrations. Check out the Odyssey of Homer trailer on Vimeo.
Lucky you – Ms. Hulse has a public Prezi of her shadow puppet presentation.
More NAEA14 awesomeness coming up soon!
Enjoy!
Holly , thanks for sharing!
Hi Rina, Thanks for coming to the workshop, glad you enjoyed it. Please let me know if you create shadow puppets with your students.
Hi Grace. I LOVED your workshop. I think I will start with your paper monster collage around Halloween. Also find some YouTube videos of shadow puppet plays to show the class. Thanks so much!
I read the book The Monster Mash by Mimi Maxell to my 2nd graders and they find details in each monster’s body, then compare using details in writing to visual details. The book is out of print but you can find used copies at Amazon.
Thanks Grace. Looks great…I just ordered from Amazon.
From all the blogs I’ve read, including yours, it must have been a wonderful conference. I just wish San Diego wasn’t so far from Dayton, Ohio!
Thanks for sharing the shadow puppets idea. I’ve never tried that, but it looks like fun.
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Hi Charmaine. It was a great, fun, intense, exhausting wonderful experience. NAEA will be in New Orleans in 2015. I think Chicago is also in the works – maybe you can attend?
thanks for the shout out:)
don masse recently posted..3 is the magic number:)
I’ve also always wanted to teach a Shadow Puppet unit. Some great tips here- thnx for sharing! Wish I could have been at the conference!!
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Hi Miss
I am so glad you liked the project. Wish you could have attended the conference – it would be so nice to meet you in person. I took a baby step towards teaching the unit – will write up on the blog at a later date. Happy spring to you!
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