African Folktales Puppet Project

During the 2014-2015 school year, Salem Hyde received a grant from the Syracuse City School District Educational Foundation for the African Folktales Puppet Project. This interdisciplinary project connected ELA with the Visual Arts.

Fifth grade students read traditional African folktales in the library with Ms. Oliver. The folktales they chose were, Anansi and the Moss Covered Rock, Anansi and the Talking Melon, Anansi and the Lizard, Anansi the Spider, Anansi Goes Fishing and The Girl Who Spun Gold. The students then wrote the stories as puppet plays, choosing the characters they wanted to create and writing scripts.

Mr. Foster worked with the students in art to create rod puppets of the characters the children had chosen. A rod puppet is controlled by wooden rods that turn the head and the body. The heads were made of foil, acrylic paint and plaster gauze and the bodies were made of fabric.

The Open Hand Puppet Theater performed a puppet show, The Stone Cutter,  a Japanese folktale for our students. Students also worked with an Open Hand artist in residence, Leslie Archer, to design and direct their performances. 

Our students performed 12 different puppet plays based on 6 different African folktales for the students of our school. They did a fantastic job of writing the puppet plays and their puppets were truly beautiful works of art.

Congratulations 6th graders for your creativity, hard work and perseverance!

Rod puppets by fifth grade students.

Open Hand Puppet Theater performance of The Stone Cutter.

Salem Hyde fifth graders perform Anansi and the Talking Melon.

Field Trip to Colgate University

Field Trip to Colgate University

In April, fifth grade students were invited to Colgate University in Hamilton, New York to attend a play in the Children’s Theater Workshop. The play, entitled Pancha What?, was a series of delightful animal stories from India performed by Colgate students.

After the play, our students had a chance to interact with the actors and to try on some of the colorful animal masks used in the play. They also went on a tour of the beautiful Colgate campus and saw many of their academic buildings. This trip was an incredible experience for our fifth graders; the play was wonderful and students learned much from their visit to the campus. 

Arts and Literacy Night 2015

Salem Hyde presented an Arts and Literacy Night on  April 1st, 2015. Artwork was displayed for each student in grades K-6 and students participated in a variety of activities connected to English Language Arts. Author and illustrator Frank Cammuso was present for an autograph and book signing. It was an evening of fun and learning, connecting the visual arts with literacy.

Tiger and butterfly paintings by first grade.

Rainforest drawings by fifth grade.

Egyptian Mummy masks by sixth grade.

What we are studying in February

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 Here are art lessons we are working on in the Salem Hyde art room during the month of February. 






Sixth graders are creating Egyptian mummy masks in an interdisciplinary lesson connecting art with social studies.




                            
                                      

 Fourth grade students are learning about ceramic techniques through the creation of a coil vessel inspired by ancient Native American art. This lesson is connected with the fourth grade social studies curriculum.

 Second grade students are creating self-portraits as fairy tale princes and princesses. This lesson is connected to their studies of fairy tales in ELA. Students are learning about geometric shape and pattern in the creation of their crown.

 Fifth graders are creating rod puppets for Anansi stories from Africa. Students are writing their own puppet shows based on these folktales. The plays will be performed for the students of our school. This project was made possible by a grant from the Syracuse City School District Educational Foundation.

Third grade students are creating Chinese dragon collages based on illustrations from Eric Carle's book Dragons, Dragons. They are learning about primary and secondary colors through the creation of this collage.

 First graders are learning about symmetry through the creation of butterflies in watercolor. Students viewed and discussed the symmetry of                                                       butterflies in Japanese                                               prints.

Kindergarten students are learning about pattern by creating giraffe paintings. Students looked at folk paintings of animals from Tanzania. They discussed the way in which the artists depicted giraffes in their paintings.