STEM plus Arts = Learning Full STEAM ahead!

FULL STEAM AHEAD!!!

Your participation in our projects to bring the Arts into every core standard is making tracks and showing instant results in the students and teachers we work with. Thank you so much for your continued support of these events and workshops. Here is one of our latest experiences:

Ms. Ross,  "LOOK, LOOK, I created a number line dance for 6/12+3/12........."

Ms. Ross, "DID you see my "Choreography" of the ordered pairs.....wasn't it out of this world!!"

Ms. Ross, "I can do it.  I wrote a word problem by myself and answered it by myself.  Okay not by myself entirely but almost by myself."

The power of the arts strikes again..... at Kenmore Middle School and Greenwood Elementary School.  For the past 3 weeks, we at Story Tapestries have had the honor of working with teachers on how to use the arts, specifically dance and story, to teach math.  At first, when we proposed the idea of teaching  fractions and graphing ordered pairs of numbers using dance, we were met with skepticism.  However, by the closing day, both the students and teachers enthusiasm was huge.  The 4th graders at Greenwood got it, they understand both at a math and a kinesthetic level how to add basic fractions.  Within one 45 minute session, they acted out a word problem, solved one, and wrote their own.

On the other hand, at Kenmore Middle School the students we were there to support have cognitive and developmental needs that requires a variety of adaptions.  YET again, the teacher at Kenmore MS stepped up to the plate.  She blew our mind away with her creative ideas and passion for helping her students grow. We taped out a "LARGE size" Graph on the floor of her classroom.  We completely rearranged the desks.  EVERY idea we had, she always said yes, never no.

Through our work, the students began to develop a stronger comprehension of positive or negative integers on a graph.  Finally, they had a full body experience learning how to graph a series of ordered pairs.  It was not an everyday lesson.  They had to write out the pairs, graph the pairs and finally dance their graph illustrating to us their understanding of the parallel arts and math objectives.  It was powerful to see students who are not always considered successful, who have difficulty remembering details, instead creating, rehearsing and finally performing a 4 phrase dance blocked on a graph.

As we sit here right now formulating this report, it is with the knowledge that it is not, what Arianna Ross, the Executive Director, did with the information that caused it to be so impactful but again the power of the arts to take a relatively basic lesson and make it exciting, engaging and educational.  For many people, this report may  feel out of the ordinary but the truth is that this is what we do EVERY day at Story Tapestries, we bring the arts to the community with a new power approach.

Thank you again for continuing to bring the Arts into the lives of our communities.

If you love being part of this project please send it to a friend who can love supporting it too.

Happy 2015! 

We hit the ground running this year and are already deep into building our programs and services bigger and better for the New Year. 

While the nation’s overall dropout rate is declining, Secretary Arne Duncan has stated that the dropout rate is still “unsustainably high for a knowledge-based economy and still unacceptably high in our African-American, Latino, and Native-American communities.” This means it is more important than ever for us to continue moving forward in our work of  teaching literacy and STEM concepts through the arts, especially for these communities who have limited access to such educational resources.

Truthfully, some days our work is a challenge....students are distracted, teachers over-burdened with testing, administrators taxed over managing the every-changing moving parts of the school system...BUT...every time we hear a positive response from a teacher about how our work has helped motivate them to think about old lessons in a new way, or every time a student gleefully proclaims the correct answer to a once daunting question..we remember, THIS is why we must go on! THIS is why we LOVE our work. 

But you don't have to just take my word for it, check out these quotes about Arianna and Story Tapestries.......

“She creates an environment where the children feel safe to take risks and grow from their mistakes. It is with her soft yet strong voice that guides the children.”

            -Franklin Wassmer, Principal, Washington DC

“Thank you for inspiring me to remember how I used to teach.”

            -Jen Flores, 1^st Grade Teacher, Barrett Elementary School, VA

 “They sat in awe! She exceeded our expectations. We want her back next year!!”

            -Adrian Blount, Administrator, Ideal Academy, Washington DC