arts education Archives - Page 7 of 8 - Arts for Learning Virginia

A Creative Collaboration: Suffolk Center Art and Theater Camps

July 23, 2020 By Cindy Sherwood

Get set for a rush of creativity flowing out of Suffolk starting next week. We’re thrilled to again collaborate with our partners at the Suffolk Center for Cultural Arts (SSCA) to offer in-person camps for children ages six to twelve, with Centers for Disease Control COVID-19 measures in place to keep everyone safe and healthy. The camps offer a chance for kids to interact with their peers while learning and having creative fun.

Our teaching artists have led the camps for the past seven years. At next week’s visual arts camp, teaching artists Jerilynn Ruger, Matt Harrison, and Joppa Whitehead will mentor campers on the fundamentals of drawing, painting, sculpture, and collage. At the theater camp, teaching artists Katherine Willet, Jerilynn Ruger, and Jennifer Gammill will share the fundamentals of theater, costume design, set design, improvisation, scene writing, and more. At each camp, students will have the opportunity to share their work with their families at the end of the week.

These photos from 2013 give a glimpse of the fun kids have at the camp. A4L’s longstanding partnership with the Suffolk Center began that summer and has strengthened ever since. In 2018, Arts for Learning named the Suffolk Center its “Partnership of the Year” for the unique summer camp collaboration.

“We partner with Arts for Learning because they have talented and brilliant instructors who spearhead a week of creative fun while weaving in the need for art, the history of art, and the execution of art in our everyday life,” says Gavin Harper, SSCA Program and Education Manager.

The visual arts camp starts this Monday, running from 8:30 a.m. until 3 p.m. through Friday, July 31. The theme is “Our Future.”

We had decided on the Our Future theme before COVID-19 hit,” Harper says, “so what an interesting and pertinent time for students to think about their future and how the world will be affected and how art can be a source of light in a dark time.”

Campers will work on pottery, graphic novels, Picasso shapes/Cubism, pop art, splatter painting, and paper mosaic, and will also learn how art is translated to dance. A final art show will cap off the week, with artwork also to be featured in a new virtual exhibition for family and friends to view.

The theater summer camp will run from August 3-August 7, with campers learning how to act, sing, and dance. Our teaching artists will work with students to write, rehearse, and produce a ten-minute musical that they’ll present on stage at the Center’s Birdsong Theater. The historic 530-seat auditorium offers plenty of space for family members to social distance while they enjoy the show. The Center may also offer a virtual option by live-streaming the performance on its Facebook page.

To make sure campers have a fun, safe week interacting with their peers, Suffolk Center camp staff members will proactively follow guidelines issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Campers will have their temperature taken upon arrival and will work in small groups. Hand sanitizers and wipes will be available to campers and surfaces will be sanitized before and during camp. Both camps will take place inside and outside to allow for ventilation. Please visit www.suffolkcenter.org for a complete list of safety guidelines or email Gavin Harper at gavin.harper@suffolkcenter.org for additional information.

Registration is available on-line at www.suffolkcenter.org/summercamps/ or you can reserve a spot for your child over the phone at 757-923-0003, ext. 103. We’re looking forward to a great couple of weeks.

Arts for Learning and the ‘Covid Slide’

June 17, 2020 By Cindy Sherwood

It’s known as the “summer slide,” the learning setbacks that students often experience during their break from school. This year, some are calling it the “Covid Slide,” and the effects are expected to be much more severe, particularly for vulnerable children. Researchers project students could lose up to a full year of the academic growth that would normally be expected.In the aftermath of distance learning, students are likely to return to the classroom in the fall with losses of 32-37% in reading and 50-63% in math.

The losses aren’t spread evenly among all students. Already vulnerable students are expected to suffer the most, with socio-economic achievement gaps widening further due to disparities in access to home internet connections, computers, and direct instruction from teachers.

Arts for Learning Virginia is dedicated to helping address the Covid Slide.

Our curriculum, both in-person and virtual, is designed to act as a bridge between this spring’s distance learning and fall classroom instruction. As our name implies, we’re not just an arts organization—we’re also an organization devoted to education and to promoting literacy through the arts to help students learn in engaging and creative ways. For example, a dance lesson that includes math concepts about fractions and division, without students even realizing that’s what they’re learning, can be just as effective as a teacher’s lecture.

We’ve also been deeply affected by Virginia’s stay-at-home order that shut down schools. The cancellations of spring programming were devastating for both our artists and our organization. At a time when we’ve missed out on tens of thousands of revenue, the programming demands of the Covid era are much more intense for our staff.

Will you consider donating so we can keep bringing arts education to all children, including those most in need of our support? Any amount counts in helping us fulfill our mission. Donate here.

Cheers for our ACE Theater Arts Residency

June 11, 2020 By Cindy Sherwood

Mikayla and Sabrina at the ACE performance — Mikayla and her friend Sabrina enjoy some well-deserved snacks after the ACE performance of “Courage and Kindness.”

It’s been six months since the end of our After-School Creative Enrichment (ACE) theater residency at Norfolk’s Bay View Elementary School, and we look back fondly at this pilot program for third through fifth graders. Students worked together with their peers, educators, and A4L artists as they learned all aspects of theater staging. But that’s not all—the program focused on social-emotional skills, too. Parent Brittany Cottrill says the program made a real difference to her daughter Mikayla, now a rising fourth-grader.

“I could see my daughter’s confidence and understanding of emotions greatly increase during this program. She helped out behind the scenes and was very proud of herself. She showed compassion at home towards me in ways I hadn’t seen before. Mikayla also looked forward to being at practice!”

Students gave high marks to the program, with their own assessments showing:

93% gains in creative expression
90% gains in student-to-student connectedness
88% gains in student self-worth

At the end of the residency, students presented a program called “Courage and Kindness” to parents, friends, and teachers. Mikayla, who chose to work behind-the-scenes, helped out when there was a blip on stage and a student dropped a prop.

“They felt so bad. I tried to help them with their feelings. I liked the performance because people on stage were helping each other.”

Warching the ACE performance — An appreciative audience watches the performance of “Courage and Kindness” at Bay View Elementary School in Norfolk.

“I was touched by the presentation. It brought out a lot of talent of the kids,” Brittany says. “It was awesome to see some of the children that we’ve known for years break out of their shell and use the acting talent that you wouldn’t ever know was there unless they were presented with this opportunity.”

Skits focused on how to show compassion to others. One particularly moving skit featured the real-life story of a student who had invited her whole class to her birthday party and then faced the disappointment of no one showing up. Stories like this helped teach the ACE participants how to be kinder and more empathetic toward others.

“With the specific skit, it was really just showing how friends can show friends compassion and be nice to one another in several different situations,” Brittany says. “I just really noticed Mikayla showing that at home towards me, like if it had been a long day and I was trying to get things done and on a schedule, her being more compassionate and more willing to help.”

The United Way of South Hampton Roads (UWSHR) helped fund the ACE theater residency. We thank them for making this project possible.

If you’d like to support our work in bringing arts education to children, please donate here.

A Contest to Say ‘Thank You’

June 4, 2020 By Cindy Sherwood

Isn’t this great? It’s one of the entries we’ve received for our “Artful Thanks” contest. Lucy, a first-grader from King George County, shared this wonderful artwork with us.

We love drawings and would like to see many more pictures, but that’s not all! Kids may choose the art form of their choice to express their thanks to Virginia’s essential workers. A story or poem… a collage or sculpture… a video or photo… there are so many ways kids can show their gratitude.

Entries aren’t due until June 30, so kids have lots of time to work on their creations. We’ll continue sharing entries, and later in the summer our judges will award two $25 Amazon gift cards in each of two categories: kindergarten through second grade and third through fifth grade.

Please share with anyone you know who has creative (and grateful) children. Click here for more details on how to submit.

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Behind-the-Scenes of Take 10

May 19, 2020 By Cindy Sherwood

At the beginning of 2020, none of us could have predicted what life would look like now in the spring. And certainly none of us at Arts for Learning could have known our Norfolk office would be turned into a makeshift video production studio.

Less than two months ago, our program team, joined by sixteen artists on the Arts for Learning roster, rallied to start creating ten-minute video segments for students learning at home, so the arts could remain part of their daily curriculum.

But there was a steep learning curve for artists and staff alike.

“It’s been a matter of working through the kinks,” as Noel puts it. From the beginning, she’s worked directly with our artists to talk through the process of creating the Take 10 videos, conversations that have taken up to two hours long and have included detailed instructions of social distancing protocols and safety measures taken before, during, and after recording. Only one of A4L’s artists had any experience producing live or recorded videos of their art. And Kirkpatrick and Noel also quickly realized they needed new equipment for better audio and video quality. The latest additions are a new directional microphone and LED lighting, made possible in part by a grant from the Community Knights Foundation.

“The quality has really expanded since the beginning of the process until now. Just watching the edited videos, it’s like, wow! Look how far we’ve come,” Kirkpatrick says. “Every session has brought with it a new lesson for me about how to approach the work.” One of Kirkpatrick’s latest projects certainly wasn’t included in his job description when he was started at A4L in January—it involved a trip to Lowe’s to buy PVC pipe and vellum paper to build a homemade light diffuser.

Noel is especially grateful to the artists who have participated in Take 10. “The fact that they have trusted us as an organization with their health is very important to me.”

“I’m just thankful for our artists’ willingness to be creative and share their art. Take 10 happened because artists said yes to trying something different.”

Kirkpatrick agrees. “We all have pent-up creativity right now. So to see an outlet be created and have artists come in and do their own thing, it’s really good vibes.”

So what’s next for our digital programming? Stay tuned, as they say in the news business. We’re working on the next phase and look forward to sharing details soon.

You can watch our Take 10 videos anytime on our YouTube channel, with music, dance, storytelling, crafts, and more to choose from.

Like what you see? We’re paying our artists to create Take 10 videos, but we don’t receive any money to produce them. Can you give $10 to Take 10? Donate here!

A Creative Collaboration: Suffolk Center Art and Theater Camps

Arts for Learning and the ‘Covid Slide’

Cheers for our ACE Theater Arts Residency

A Contest to Say ‘Thank You’

Behind-the-Scenes of Take 10

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Main Office

My Teaching Artist Journey with Arts for Learning Virginia

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