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Murray Journal

Student art from among 170 lessons showcased at Grant, McMillan

Oct 07, 2024 01:04PM ● By Julie Slama

Families look at the works students created at the Grant Elementary art show. (Julie Slama/City Journals)

Last spring, then Grant Elementary third-grader Aurora Erickson was explaining how she made the hive background of her artwork showcasing bees.

“I pressed the paper on painted bubble wrap to create the pattern that looks like hives,” she said. “I’ve found five of my art pieces, but I like the bees because they were fun to draw.”

Aurora was showing her mother, Wendy, the art on the walls she had made during the year as part of her art rotation.

“She draws on her tablet almost every day,” Erickson said about her daughter. “I appreciate art being in schools. It’s important so the kids can express their creativity. I think it helps with learning, being able to portray something through art and it helps them focus and learn in different ways.”

Art filled both Grant and McMillan elementary schools’ halls at the end-of-year showcases, allowing family members to come appreciate the combined 800 students’ talents.  

This year, students already are learning new skills in art, including taking advantage of the $14,000 Beverley Taylor Sorenson supplemental art grant Murray School District’s then Elementary Director of Teaching and Learning Missy Hamilton and Beverley Taylor Sorenson art teacher Jeanne Simpson secured to get more supplies, such as canvases and looms. Simpson plans to use some of that funding to have presenters come from five Utah Native American tribes and introduce weaving, color sand drawing, beading and making petroglyphs to students.

“I hope they not only try these techniques, but they learn to have a greater appreciation of all people,” she said.

Simpson, who taught in the elementary classrooms 36 years before stepping into her art teacher role, created 170 art lessons last school year. She split her week teaching two days per week at Grant and three at McMillan. Students are in in her class for about 45 minutes once per week.

When families first walked in the schools, they could see bright pictures of snowmen, corn on the cob, penguins, tulips, pumpkins and more on the walls. But investigating it further, they realized the art wasn’t just fun assignments, but opportunities to further learn and expand on classroom curriculum. Simpson detailed each one next to the artwork.

“All of the art projects are tied to the state core curriculum,” Simpson said. “I plan the art lessons around what the teachers are teaching so it coincides. For example, when it’s Chinese New Year, we created dragons and with Veterans Day, we did poppies.”

Students also learned about the importance of bison to Native America tribes before creating their own artwork of bison. They studied the Pando, the largest living organism on earth in a quaking aspen grove all connected to one root system in Fish Lake National Forest in central Utah, then created their own aspen trees using an art technique with cotton swabs and watercolors.

Students also learned about different artists, such as Pablo Picasso, Jackson Pollock, Mary Stevenson Cassatt, and tried to imitate their styles. 

By doing this, “they learned different things about brushes, mixed media, printmaking, jelly plates. They worked with different forms such as watercolor, metallic markers, Sharpies and learn about color theory and using complementary colors,” Simpson said.

During a class at Grant, Utah State Poet Laureate Lisa Bickmore came and gave sixth-grade students a writing lesson about the Great Salt Lake. Simpson then had them take the poems they wrote and illustrate them. They inked up Styrofoam sheets and ran them through a printing press.

At McMillan, they learned about the eared grebe migrating to the Great Salt Lake. 

“About 99% of that species comes to Utah twice a year, about 4 million birds,” Simpson said. “They depend on the brine shrimp, so the kids learn the salinity of the lake is dependent upon the water levels and if it’s too high, it kills the brine shrimp which impacts the birds. They’re illustrating what they learn so it solidifies their understanding.”

Younger students read “The Hungry Caterpillar” by Eric Carle and learned about the life cycle of a butterfly. Then, they supported the story by using art to identify characters, settings and details in the text by using clay to form caterpillars which sit upon leaves they decorated, she said.

“When you integrate what they are learning with art, and they can see it applied to what they’re studying, it gives them a whole new perspective at that topic,” Simpson said.

Such was the case when older student learned about the Egyptians.

“They made hieroglyphs, and they grew in their understanding of how they communicate, what they wore, and who they were. It exposed them more to world cultures and gave them more perspective,” she said.

In fourth grade, students learn about Utah from its symbols to the environment. Simpson gave them the opportunity to create their own collages of the state.

“They were creative. Some kids make their own map of Utah and showed places you could go visit such as the Spiral Jetty and Bryce Canyon National Park. They learned about the Gila monster and some included that. There was the Sego lily and sweet onions, which replaced beets as the state vegetable,” she said. “They had fun with that assignment.”

Millan parent Bethany Matsumori said families could see the many projects were hung on large banners throughout the school.

“We’re excited because her approach is skill-based so it was fun to see what that program brought to our school this year; our students loved the projects which showed what they learned, but they also had a time to be playful and creative,” she said. “By having an art night, it gives students recognition for their skills and talents.” λ