Who: Lunada Bay Elementary
Art Form: Visual Arts
Teaching Artist: Eiko Amano
Program Dates: February – June 2008
Grade: 1
Program Associate: Kristen Engebretsen

Skirball Artist-Teacher Partnership Residency Program at Lunada Bay Elementary, Palos Verdes Peninsula Unified School District

All art disciplines continue to flourish at Lunada Bay Elementary School. The goal at Lunada Bay is to strengthen Visual and Performing Arts, as they work toward greater integration of all curricular areas. The school provides a general music program and choral program for all 428 students, grades K through 5. In addition, Lunada Bay offers each grade level an arts residency with the Music Center.

Lunada Bay played an integral part in their district's move to join Arts-for-All (a 10-year strategic initiative to restore comprehensive sequential K-12th grade arts education at all 80 public school districts in Los Angeles County) in the fall 2005. As a district, they are focusing on professional development for their teachers. Coinciding with this focus, Lunada Bay has been participating in the Music Center's Skirball Artist-Teacher Partnership Residency, a professional development model that supports collaborative planning and teaching between teaching artists and classroom teachers, with a focus on helping educators gain skills and content knowledge in music, dance, theatre or visual arts, and exploring integration strategies with other areas of the curriculum.

With district and PTA support and the leadership of Principal Joan Romano, Lunada Bay is currently providing discipline-based-art instruction for all students at each grade level.

• Grade K – Folk and international dance with Rosina Didyk
• Grade 1 – Visual arts with Eiko Amano
• Grade 2 – Puppetry and theatre arts with Ellen Schulze
• Grade 3 – Modern dance with Francisco Martinez
• Grade 4 – Musical theatre with Rob Bowers
• Grade 5 – Contemporary dance with Robert Gilliam

The abundance of the arts at Lunada Bay could not have been possible without the direction of Principal Joan Romano. Ms. Romano values arts education and is committed to bringing the full spectrum of the arts to her school. She believes that "elementary school is a time for exposing students to many things so that they can experience for themselves and begin to recognize their own passions and strengths." Romano continues, "This residency program has provided an enriching collaborative program at my school, allowing us to offer students the opportunity to experience a variety of genres in the arts, build their confidence and generate a love of the arts."

The teachers at Lunada Bay have partnered with Music Center teaching artists since 2004. According to Ms. Romano, the partnership between the classroom teachers and the teaching artists has improved teaching strategies in all areas of the curriculum. Romano shares, "By working in collaboration with the artists my teachers have developed not only a more comprehensive understanding of how to teach the arts, but have also developed confidence in their own talents and ability to bring the arts to the students. They have also been able to bridge connections to the classroom into not only curricular areas, but also into developing habits of mind and positive and beneficial learning behaviors in all students."

Music Center Teaching Artist, Eiko Amano partners with first grade teachers at Lunada Bay for the first time this year. A visual artist on the Music Center roster since 1990, Eiko's innovative workshops are shaped by the unique blending of her experience as an artist with her background in analytical medical sciences. She has taught at various schools in Southern California, working with students ranging from kindergarten to adult.

The visual arts residency with Eiko includes working with ceramics, drawing, and painting. However, Eiko's workshops primarily focus on ceramics, from building techniques using clay to the kiln firing process. Students use clay to work on hand-eye coordination, spatial relationships and develop tactile senses. Strong emphasis is placed on the students' personal growth as they are guided through the creative process. The various projects are geared to arouse curiosity and to encourage the students to think about the world around them. The clay projects selected all build sequentially on each other. For example, the students' first workshop was learning the slab technique to create a fish. Then they learned the coil method to make a snake. During the third workshop, they combined these skills to make a turtle. The sequence begins with simple projects and learning about the basics and then builds on that foundation.

First grade teachers Stefanie Fujita, Paula DeManuel, Christina Lukstein, and Bev Smith are all working effectively with Eiko on clay projects, drawing, and painting. Mrs. DeManuel shares, "I appreciate Eiko's calm, directed way of teaching. She asks for my opinion and asks for my help with decisions involving my class art and I appreciate that." Eiko thought clay projects would be effective to include in this residency because it is conducive to co-teaching. The classroom teacher can easily model or demonstrate for the students and help Eiko check the students' work. Ms. Fujita admits, "It is important for me to collaborate with the artist to create a meaningful standards-based art experience that will enrich the students' first grade year. We not only incorporate the art standards, but also math, language arts, and science standards into the experience."

As Eiko works with these teachers, her goals are to integrate other disciplines such as geometry, arithmetic, science and language arts with visual arts and increase awareness of the environment and of relationships and connections between all things. Furthermore, working with clay is a great tool for students to learn about three-dimensional objects and to have a hands-on way to explore spatial relationships. "The first grade team felt that it was essential to introduce an art form that is very hands-on and fun for the students at such a young age (Mrs. Fujita)." Students develop motor skills, aesthetic awareness and creative vision as they create their own masterpieces. These student 'masterpieces' are then displayed at the culminating exhibit at the end of the residency.

From beginning to end, this residency is an exciting process for these first graders! From reactions like, "I like working with clay" and "I like to create things" to "[We’ve learned that] you always have to listen and follow directions," these students are learning about an art form that is connected to three-dimensional shapes and animal habitats, which are standards for the first grade. "I really appreciate the opportunity for my class to experience different forms of artistic expression. Aligning the many art projects with first grade standards reinforces and supports content in a meaningful way (Ms. Lukstein)." Through the arts, students as well as teachers gain literacy not only in the art discipline, but are inspired to incorporate it into other areas of learning. "By observing the artist, we as teachers are learning along with the students. We can share this information on technique, vocabulary, and the joy of art with future students (Mrs. Smith)."

The Music Center believes that arts education is an essential and integral part of learning for all students. The arts enable students to develop critical and creative thinking skills, initiative, discipline, and perceptual abilities, as well as a body of knowledge and skills, in each art form. In a world where people have different modalities of processing information, the arts provide a tool for everyone to have access to information and to acquire knowledge. Principal Romano comments, "The arts promote creative expression, individuality, collaboration and confidence. It provides an avenue for children to succeed who otherwise might not in the academic arena." As Lunada Bay continues to put value on quality arts education and to invest in school-wide programming, the students reap the benefits and are given the opportunity to have a fully enriched education during their elementary school years.

For more information about bringing student workshops to your school, call (213) 250-ARTS or email us at schoolprograms@musiccenter.org.

Written by Cammy Truong, School Communications Associate