As soon as students sat down at their tables for the second day of ArtSpace, they were confronted by colored squares of paper with ovals drawn on them. Passing the paper squares around the table, each student added a single facial feature at a time until the ovals turned into wildly colored, scary, funny, sad or happy faces. Then students played a game of call-and-response drumming: at first they tried responding before they had even heard the “call,” but then realized how important it is to listen to the drum-beat before trying to mimic it.
The second activity of the day presented the students with special storytelling “wands.” Although many students thought these wands looked like cardboard tubes, they didn’t realize that the wands held magical powers: when a person holds the storytelling wand, he or she is transformed into the storyteller, and everyone else is transformed into a quietly attentive audience. With the help of the storytelling wands, students narrated exciting, scary, funny and strange stories about Halloween. Stories ranged from “My trip to Fear Farm” to “Aliens vs. Zombies” to “Swarm of costumed trick-or-treaters takes over Peter Piper Pizza.”
The main activity of the day involved Dixie cups, paper disks, beads and duct tape. What artistic masterpiece would be created out of such a diverse array of materials, you may ask? Students soon found themselves deeply involved in the creation of percussion instruments. They put beads in a Dixie cup, affixed a makeshift lid using a paper disk and a couple pieces of duct tape, and voila: shakers! The class then participated in another round of call-and-response drumming, using shakers instead classroom tables.
Next up: more instrument building.
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