CHALLENGE 5 – Dreams! #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 Creativity Challenge for March 28 – March 31 is ………….. #Dreams!
Today we’re going to share a few ways to investigate Dreams 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: Who wants to sleep when the sky is awake?!? In this 51-minute training with Barbara Santora from Fairbanks, educators try a visual arts lesson for Grades K-12. This session features watercolor techniques that bring students’ nighttime visions of the Aurora Borealis to life.
FIND A VISUAL ARTS LESSON PLAN
A Winter’s Nap: What might a bear dream of throughout a long Alaskan winter? In this Project ARTiculate lesson, students learn about the habits and habitats of Alaska’s bears and create a drawing of a hibernating bear, complete with cut paper shapes representing the bear’s dreams. Designed for Grade 1, easy to adapt for other elementary grades.
A Dreamscape: How might we design an environment of our emotions and dreams? In this “Expressionist Environment” lesson from Project ARTiculate, students create their own 3D environment using paper folding and cutting techniques. Embellishments are added with color and pattern. Grades 3 and above.
Be Part of a Dream Team: How can bits of material combine to bring a character into our world? This short episode of The Art Assignment from PBS Digital Studios features JooYoung Choi, who shares tales of her fictional realm The Cosmic Womb and beckons us to create our own IMAGINARY FRIEND. Grades 6 and above.
JUMP INTO A NEW DRAMA GAME
Exquisite Corpse: This gruesomely titled game was created by the French Surrealist painters–it’s not nearly as scary as it sounds! This video by Asolo Repertory Theatre demonstrates the distance-learning drama version of this storytelling game. It also explains variations for in-person settings, and versions for different art forms. Grades 4 and above.
SING AND DANCE ALONG
Guess My Dream: Minnesota Public Radio has developed a collection of at-home lessons focused on Classical Music. In this edition, students are encouraged to listen to pieces and guess the kind of dream each composer had in mind when writing the music. Grades K-5.
We hope these ideas spark your creative thinking for this final week of Alaska Arts Education Month 2021. 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.