Hold Up The Sky interdisciplinary arts at Rose Ave PS with Inner City Angels, Mariposa In The Schools and Kaeja d’Dance ~ PHOTO Katherine Fleitas
Happiness is another word for wellbeing
Ontario Ministry of Education includes in its determinants of health, social support networks, education and literacy, social environments, coping skills, healthy child development, gender, and culture. Other recent models include stress and care in early life. Together, such factors affect an individual’s overall state of physical, mental, social, emotional, and spiritual wellbeing. They influence not only whether a person stays healthy or becomes ill but also the extent to which the person possesses the physical, social, and personal resources needed to identify and achieve personal aspirations, satisfy needs, and cope with the environment. This is what we call courage and resilience.
Although students have varying degrees of control over these factors, it is important to be aware of them as contributing factors in student performance. It is also important to recognize the value of personal strategies that can be learned and practised to foster well-being in the face of stressful and challenging life circumstances.
In the Ontario Health Curriculum students are also encouraged to make connections beyond themselves to understand how our health is connected with that of others and is affected by factors in the world around them, how they interpret global issues and how they can influence change.
Overarching idea for arts, wellbeing and social justice
An arts and learning model that prepares our students to respond with efficacy to social challenges in a rapidly changing world, and to have the freedom, confidence and support to address these challenges in order to catalyze change.
Arts and wellbeing is designed to:
- Incorporate the arts in all its disciplines to enhance personal and community wellbeing
- Examine the economic, environment and social challenges shaping our world
- Build character strengths while examining our own uniqueness and connections
- Examine how the world is changing and the impact of our choices locally and globally
- Build student resiliency, self-esteem, zest and courage to catalyze change
- Include all participants in a collaborative atmosphere of love of learning
Arts Programs That Support Wellbeing
Balance • Empathy • Inclusion • Harmony • Mindfulness • Resilience
Chaos + The Butterfly Effect
Rich mixed media butterflies by kindergarten students ~ PHOTO Kevin Arsenault
Did you know that the flap of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil could set off a tornado in Texas by creating tiny changes in the atmosphere that could accelerate, or even prevent, the tornado? How could we express that through the arts? Try this interdisciplinary STEAM idea using mixed media, story and dance to introduce a new science theory for human resilience.
Adaptable to all grades ~ Pria Muzumdar + Moojan Nazmi ~
Artistic Process (coming soon) + Short Film
DNA + ME (En/Fr)
Cells are the basic building blocks of all living things! Our body is comprised of trillions of cells that provide our physical being, take in nutrients from food, convert those nutrients into energy, and carry out special functions. Cells also contain the body’s hereditary material and can make copies of themselves. This is called our DNA and it is unique to every individual and their ancestry. DNA + ME is STEAM opportunity to examine ourselves and the science of cells while creating small and large scale DNA inspired portraits, 3D paper, wire sculpture or a narrative mural. Ideal for grades 7+8 ~ Pria Muzumdar + Paul Walty ~
Artistic Process (coming soon) + Short Film
Each Kindness
Each kindness is an eponymous story of inclusion expressed in a colourful narrative mural inspired by grade 4 to 6 students from Morse St PS. We share it with you!
Based on Each Kindness by Jacqueline Woodson, Illustrated by E.B. Woodson, Nancy Paulsen Books, An Imprint of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
Chloe and her friends won’t play with the new girl, Maya. Every time Maya tries to join Chloe and her friends, they reject her. Eventually, Maya stops coming to school. When Chloe’s teacher gives a lesson about the ripple effects of kindness, Chloe is stung by the lost opportunity for friendship, and thinks about how much better it could have been if she’d shown a kindness toward Maya. Adaptable to all grades ~ Mahshid Fadaei, Sandra Iskandar, Pria Muzumdar + Allycia Uccello ~
Artistic Process (coming soon)
Expressive Portraits (En/Fr)
Applying simple art techniques including 3D line drawings, soft jute relief, collage, paint and mirror image printmaking, students describe themselves or a friend with colour, shape, line, form and word. They may integrate story writing, I Am poems, and drawings in mixed media exploring cultural origins, personal identities and relationships. Each child may be gifted with a painting—created by another child—about his or her own unique self.
Adaptable to all grades ~ Mahshid Fadaei, Elizabeth Greisman, Samina Mansuri, Moojan Nazmi, Marsha Stonehouse, Allycia Uccello + Paul Walty ~
Artistic Process (coming soon)
FLOW
Here we examine the universal presence of flow seen in successful natural and social organizations and chat about how these tree-like structures have core strength, are rooted with organic branches or split patterns that can adapt to environmental conditions. We can compare tree branching to our circulatory system, rivers, etc., and then to other social organization schematics such as families, schools, networks, communities and neighbourhoods. We can create a collaborative social system inspired by how nature ebbs and flows. Artwork is mixed media with colourful illustrations and paint. Conceived and led by visual artists and designers Pria Muzumdar and can include dance with Mariposa In The Schools choreographers Sarina Condello and Bailey Davis ~ Adaptable to all grades.
Artistic Process (coming soon)
Global Garden Quilt (En/Fr)
Create a narrative quilt of varied world designs and indigenous and exotic fruits and flowers in textile, embroidery, sequins, beads, yarn, pencils and markers with Mosa McNeilly. A very special art project to build cultural competency. Ideal as a graduating legacy gift. Adaptable to all grades.
A Growth Mindset (NEVER NEVER EVER GIVE UP!)
Happy students learn better, deeper and quicker – it is the most powerful way to create sustainable resilience and responsibility. Based on the theory that we all have these remarkable elastic brains, students are encouraged to research a notion, understanding or theory beyond their current skill set or self-expectation and map it in a most exciting way. The mapping process, in itself, supports enlightenment. Equipped with the belief that mistakes are essential to learning, student tackle a complex notion through an info-graphic, narrative installation, sculpture or new media art piece. This is a have fun collaborative project of self-awareness and cognitive stretching! Adaptable to all grades ~ Pria Muzumdar + Allycia Uccello
Artistic Process (coming soon) + Short Film
Humanity – How our virtues keep us well
Wellbeing is a scientific name for happiness. Each positive character trait is a strength reflected in attitudes and behaviours and so helps to instill wellbeing. Artists, educators and students collaborate on a visual art, mixed or new media or sculpture project as expression of their personal and group understandings of the TDSB character traits or virtues – PERSEVERANCE, KINDNESS, RESPECT, INTEGRITY, FAIRNESS, TEAMWORK, HONESTY, MINDFULNESS + RESPONSIBILITY. One can throw in LOYALTY for good measure!!! Or how about LOVE OF LEARNING and TRANSCENDENCE. There is no end to what kind of positive psychology vocabulary we can build and incorporate as our own. Adaptable to all grades ~ Pria Muzumdar, Mark Stoddart + Allycia Uccello
Artistic Process (coming soon) + Short Film
Mindfulness + Microbes
Mindfulness and Microbes is a STEAM study integrating the artistic beauty of graphic visualizations (drawings) and ceramic analogies (sculptures) of microbes and a host of scientific anecdotes, analogies and facts of wonderment on the human microbiome.
This arts-based inquiry into the Human Microbiome triggers significant research into science and mathematics as students study the nature and power of the trillions of microbes that affect our physical health and mental wellbeing.
The arts inquiry is visually gorgeous, articulated by using combinations of traditional art methods (drawing and ceramic sculpture) with 21st Century technologies, engineering and materials. Ideal for grades 7+8 ~ Pria Muzumdar
Artistic Process (coming soon)
My Clothes My World (En/Fr)
Consumerism is one of the greatest contributors to climate change, and yet the average person finds it difficult to create the incremental change required to help combat this global threat. Here’s an opportunity to learn about the life cycle of a piece of cloth, from the original root to the fashionable stores where we shop. In partnership with Fashion Takes Action, Canada’s premier non-profit organization that focuses on sustainability in the fashion industry, we offer this lesson in biodiversity, social responsibility, fashion and art that helps students gain insight in how we consume and how we can affect change, locally and globally. The take away for students is a personal, hand designed, up-cycle book bag and new awareness of where it originated and ideas on where it could go in the future. Ideal for grades 4 to 8 ~ in collaboration with Fashion Takes Action designers.
Artistic Process (coming soon) + Short Film
Seven Sacred Grandfather Teachings
The First Nations, Métis and Inuit peoples of North America were given the great gift of human understanding in Seven Teachings of the Sacred Grandfathers, oral traditions that form the foundation of their spirituality. Each teaching is represented by an animal and honours one of the basic virtues to a full and healthy life. Grounded in these teachings is the notion of mindfulness. When we are in balance with our world we contribute to overall harmony. This program brings Mariposa In The Schools Ojibwa storytelling Esther Osche into the classroom in partnership with visual artist and ICA sculptor Charmaine Lurch. Young students learn about balance and harmony through these remarkable tales and practice a visual interpretation of each. Ideal for grades 3 to 6.
Artistic Process (coming soon) + Short Film
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IN DEVELOPMENT
~ Mapping My Heart (in collaboration with Mariposa In The Schools)