The 2^nd grade classes created artwork for the offrenda, which was used as the backdrop for the celebration.  Students listened to a presentation about the holiday and saw exciting performances from Ms. Ellis, Ms. L. Martin, and Ms. Loos classes.  The celebration ended in an all-school Day of the Dead dance party.

Pictures from the 2012 Dia de los Muertos celebration

Dia de los Muertos Introduction

Below is a video about journalist and artist José Guadalupe Posada, whose work is closely associated to Dia de los Muertos

This video was created by Mrs. Bailey’s fourth grade class is a representation of Posada’s comical skeleton characters.

Skeleton Dance

Thriller

Day of the Dead Skull Dance

Students listened to presentations about nutrition, oral hygiene, exercise and more. Presenters from the Urbana Park District were there as well, to talk about the new aquatic center.

Fourth and fifth grade ‘Book Buddies’ not only help 1st graders with their reading skills, they also help with STEM (Science Technology Engineering and Math) lessons. So far, students have studied Nanotechnology, Control Systems, Magic Sand and more!

In one STEM lesson, students worked together to build Nitinol Airplane Launchers. Nitinol is an alloy of nickel and titanium that has the ability to return to a predetermined shape when heated. Students constructed launchers and model airplanes, then observed how far the planes flew based on their method of attaching the Nitinol.

In addition to fun STEM experiments, the Book Buddies have taken on a Bullying Prevention project. Using grant funds, Mrs. Colman purchased sets bullying prevention books that Book Buddies are reading to 1st grade students and recording on CDs. The CDs will be put in a classroom library for checkout by 1st grade students.

While NAAPID focuses on parents of African American students, all parents and family members were encouraged to attend. Parents were invited to the school to eat lunch with their child, and an educational display, “101 African American Inventions”, was available for students see and touch many of the contributions of African American inventors.

Gene Tagaban is a speaker, motivator, trainer, and performing artists of Cherokee, Tlingit and Filipino heritage. With over 20 years of storytelling experience, Tagaban uses his gift of storytelling, dance, and music, as he travels across the country performing, presenting, and facilitating workshops on suicide prevention, empowerment, leadership, relationship-building, communication skills, self-awareness, spirit and honor to participants of all ages.

Gene shared entertaining and humorous stories from his childhood, growing up in Juno, Alaska, and combined those stories with traditional Native American music and dance. Behind his stories was a message of respect for yourself and others. He taught all of the students to follow their heart and think about the stories they are creating right now.

Members of the community can see a special concert, presented by Gene, this Saturday, February 4, at the Spurlock Museum. The event will be from 2-3:30pm and costs $5. More information can be found at the Spurlock Museum website: www.spurlock.illinois.edu.

Students learned about pop artists of the 1960s and connected to artwork by Andy Warhol.  More specifically the students connected to an Andy Warhol quote “In the future, everybody will be world famous for fifteen minutes.” The third grade students discussed Andy Warhol’s quote and brought up how Justin Bieber became famous within a year of posting videos on YouTube.  The students worked in groups to define pop culture and concluded that pop culture is anything that is popular or commonly known and is viewed through multiple forms of mass media.  After brainstorming, Mrs. Guido’s third grade students decided on the following six pop culture groups: USA, Food, Cartoons, The Diva, The Rebel, and Technology.  Each student selected which pop group they wanted to represent in the creation of their own wig.  Students sketched out the basic form of their wig and showed how they were going to represent their own pop icon before they started sculpting. Students sculpted their wigs out of Paper Mache and layered multiple paper materials to add a texture that resembled hair.

The Pop Art/Culture theme was also used in music class under the instruction of Ms. Maurizi.  Ms. Maurizi taught Ms. Feldkamp’s third class the song ‘The Beat’ which was sung at the start of the third grade fashion show.  Ms. Maurizi also teamed up with music teacher Ms.Claxon in the creation of the first Prairie Elementary teacher music video.  The Prairie Fine Arts team chose Madonna’s ‘Vogue’ as the music video to be recreated for the Prairie Pop Fashion Show.  Erin Claxon rewrote the lyrics of ‘Vogue’ to add more current pop icons to the lyrics.  Ms. Maurizi rerecorded the music on the software application Garage Band, sharing vocals with Ms. Claxon.  Mr.Clevenger was in charge of taking video footage of Prairie School staff and editing the footage to create the video aspects of ‘Vogue’.  A total of twelve Prairie School faculty members posed, danced, and modeled for the ‘Prairie Vogue’ music video.

On October 31 for the Prairie Pop Fashion Show, students came to school in an outfit that expressed something positive about themselves.  The suggestions included coming to school dressed like their favorite pop icon, wearing clothes that are only their favorite color, and in a group or team uniform, all while the outfit adhered by the USD #116 policy concerning appropriate clothes for school.  Prairie Staff also wore wigs that symbolized something positive about them.

During the fashion show students got to view a script about Andy Warhol’s Factory, written and performed by The Prairie Fine Arts Staff.  At the beginning of the Fashion show the “Pop Machine” has a system failure, and as Andy Warhol and his assistants scramble to fix the failed machine,  they find out some information on how American Pop Culture was created as well as some simple lessons about pop culture.  Each topic they learned about provided beats to fuel the machine.  Beats are bits of information or tips that can be found within Pop Culture.  For example, the USA is where the roots of the beat began.  Pop food has a beat for everyone, like the way Campbell’s soup has two hundred flavors that a person can choose from. Pop cartoons were created to animate the beat and bring laughter in those bored or sad moments. A pop Diva walks to his or her own beat. A pop rebel is a person who stands up for his or her own opinion.  Also pop technology can be very tricky and you may have to slow down to process the true meaning behind what you are searching.

To see more pictures of the fashion show and the Prairie ‘Vogue’ music video, visit the Elementary Fine Arts website gallery at www.usd116.org/finearts/index.php/art.

Click this link to see the Prairie ‘Vogue’ music video: www.usd116.org/finearts/index.php/art/prairie-vogue/

Representatives from Provena’s Marketing and Public Relations department surprised Ashanti at Prairie School to present her with the award and a $50 gift certificate in front of her classmates and family.