Challenge 1- Animals! #ArtsEdMonthAK

Alaska Arts Education Month is here!  We’re celebrating throughout March with a different Creativity Challenge each week.  Get inspired by the week’s theme to explore music, dance, theater, cultural arts, media arts, and visual arts.  Share creations by you and your students with us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter by tagging #ArtsEdMonthAK + @akartsed to join the party!   

Our first Creativity Challenge for March 1 – March 6 is ………….. #Animals! 

Interesting animals are certainly one of the first things that come to mind when thinking about Alaska. Today we’re going to share a few ways to investigate animals through the arts. Some may work in your current educational setting and some may need to be saved for a different learning landscape. All can be adapted for different ages and abilities. 

LEARN ALONGSIDE AN ARTIST 

Try one of our AAEC Art Bytes: How can we use shapes to help draw our pets or other animals?  In this 30-minute training with JoAnne Knight from Kodiak, educators try a distance delivery lesson for grades K-3.   This session features a scavenger hunt, math vocabulary, and sketching. 

 

FIND A VISUAL ARTS LESSON PLAN 

Use Everyday Items to Sculpt: Newspaper is the tool of choice for this 3D lesson from Project ARTiculate!  Students learn to make paper bases for animal legs, and then create any animal they can imagine using found objects as embellishments.  Grades 6 and above.

 

Fill in the Shape: The CoLab at The Anchorage Museum has step-by-step instructions on making beautiful string art animals.  With push pins, thread, a backing board, and the outline of a favorite animal, students can create something stunning!  Grades 3 and above.  

 

Take a WILD Selfie: If you were to take your photo as an animal, how might you appear?  In this Project ARTiculate lesson, students paint their own “self-portrait” as an Alaskan animal in the style of Fairbanks artist Todd Sherman.  Designed for Grade 1, easy to adapt for older grades. 

 

JUMP INTO A NEW DRAMA GAME 

Exercise Your Animal Behaviors: Animal Splat is a variation of the popular drama games Splat, and is easily adaptable for socially distant settings.  Check out this explanation from the Creative Multilingualism channel on YouTube. 

LEARN A DANCE

Soran Bushi- Watch this video and follow along to learn a section of the Japanese Fishing Dance Soran Bushi, brought to you by the talented educator Leslie Kimiko-Ward. Want more? Visit the resource she created, My Fishing Dance.

 

We hope these ideas spark your creative thinking for this first week of Alaska Arts Education Month.  Whether you create something from this list or from your own inspiration, remember to showcase your work on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter with #ArtsEdMonthAK + @akartsed.  

Visit again for a new Creativity Challenge and more ideas next week!