Winter 2018
by Ashley Lodato Education Director, Methow Arts Alliance When do you get to see the Methow Valley Elementary School art room filled with eagles, cougars, rattlesnakes, herons, and black widows? Second graders know the answer to this–when Trish Rouse visits the school, that’s when. Rouse, a Mazama-based artist and teaching artist, has been leading papier-mâché residencies for… [Read More]
December 2017
Fourth graders at East Omak Elementary School combined fiber arts with their perspectives on winter in a felted wool residency. Working with teaching artist Annie Venable, students explored the process of wet felting. First, students spent time observing and reflecting on the colors, traditions, and themes of winter. Next, they composed pieces of writing describing their observations. Some wrote poems… [Read More]
In the winter of 2017, Brewster 5th graders participated in a 5-week poetry residency, working with Methow Arts teaching poet Kelleigh McMillan. Students became familiar with “painting pictures with words” and with relating their emotions to the natural world. Each week they experimented with a different poetic concept: simile, metaphor, free verse, stanza, etc. Students wrote poems… [Read More]
Spring 2017
by Ashley Lodato, Education Director for Methow Arts What began as an isolated experience 4 years ago has grown to be an eagerly-anticipated component of Paschal Sherman Indian School 8th and 9th graders’ final years: the annual urban culture trip to Seattle. In its first three years the trip included seeing a musical at one of… [Read More]
Winter 2017
Using sketching and acrylic painting techniques fourth grade students at Methow Valley Elementary School created still life compositions through a Methow Arts Artist-in-Residence program. Teaching artist Deirdre Cassidy showed students a diversity of examples throughout art history and taught them about the nature of the content in still life compositions. In this residency students explored… [Read More]
Winter 2017
Methow Valley sixth graders examined the fish, flora, and fauna of the Methow River watershed through the lens of artists by designing and carving images on linoleum blocks. In this interdisciplinary unit students first learned about the creatures that inhabit the riparian zone, forested areas, and other ecosystems of the Methow Valley in a workshop in… [Read More]
Winter 2016-2017
by Ashley Lodato, Arts Education Director for Methow Arts For three snowy weeks in February, the music room at Virginia Grainger Elementary School was alive with unusual sounds: the patter of small feet and the thump of hands on the djembe–the skin covered goblet drum of West Africa. As Methow Arts teaching artists Brooke Bourn… [Read More]
Winter
When the ten dancers and drummers from Paschal Sherman Indian School and their two teachers stepped off the bus at Methow Valley Elementary School, third grade students were ready for them. The third grade curriculum includes a year-long journey through Native American studies, beginning with the Wampanoag culture in the New England region and culminating… [Read More]