by Ashley Lodato Education Director, Methow Arts Just imagine that you’re a high school drama class teacher in the tiny Methow Valley and you want to produce the musical “Chicago.” Your school is located in what many people would consider the middle of nowhere. Your class size is 30. The theater you’ll be performing in… [Read More]

by Ashley Lodato Education Director, Methow Arts In any given day, Methow Valley 4th graders move effortlessly among core subjects, integrating visual arts, science, language arts, social studies and math into their International Baccalaureate units. With one teacher who is a former wildlife biologist, a weekly “Schoolyard Science” experience facilitated by the Methow Conservancy, and… [Read More]

by Ashley Lodato Education Director, Methow Arts   Second graders at Methow Valley Elementary School combined fiber arts with creative writing in a felted wool residency, using a wet felting process to create designs inspired by the theme of “winter gratitude.” Winter Gratitude by Ember Johnson I am thankful for snow white, super, yummy, and wet… [Read More]

by Ashley Lodato, Arts Education Director, Methow Arts For the second year in a row, fourth graders at East Omak Elementary School combined fiber arts with their perspectives on winter in a felted wool residency, through Methow Arts’ Artist-in-Residence program. Working with teaching artists Annie Venable and Brooke Lucy, 120 students explored the process of wet felting.… [Read More]

by Ashley Lodato Arts Education Director photos by Rachel Stratman Third grade students at Methow Valley Elementary School had no idea that they could make art using a rock and some flowers, but after a day of learning the Victorian art of flower bashing, they were sold on the process. No one confers as much… [Read More]

Each winter, Brewster 5th graders participate in a 5-week poetry residency, working with Methow Arts teaching poet Kelleigh McMillan. Students become familiar with “painting pictures with words” and with relating their emotions to the natural world. Each week they experiment with a different poetic concept: simile, metaphor, free verse, stanza, etc. Students write poems about their bedrooms,… [Read More]