- April 25, 2024
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From the outside, Port Orange Elementary looked like it normally does once classes have let out. But inside a few select rooms, the interior had been transformed to celebrate the arts.
One building on campus was filled with ultraviolet lights and an installation that mimicked a neon landscape with trees, flowers and glowing orange and green bees. Another room was filled with colorful drawings and paintings by students. A third exhibition showcased kindergarten through fifth grade writing samples selected by the students themselves.
In the distance, a choral performance added a final touch to the educational displays.
This was all part of the Thursday, May 10, Celebrate the Arts project put on by teachers and their students to promote different mediums of art in an educational way. This year's event featured work by kindergarten through fifth graders.
A glow in the dark exhibition consisted of butterfly and moth creations by kindergarten and first graders; a variety of insects from second and third graders; and paper mache bees and hives from recycled items made by the fourth and fifth-grade classes.
According to art teacher Margaret Williams, the students have been working on their artwork since March and have been doing research to go along with what they were creating. This included learning about insects and arachnids and bee population decline.
The school had put on a similar exhibition last year centered around May 4, also known as "May the Fourth be with You," which celebrates the Star Wars franchise. However, not every student had been able to be represented and teachers wanted to ensure that this year's presentation would be a collaborative effort.
"This year we thought of a theme where every student could participate and have their work here," Williams said. "One of our benchmarks is to use art as a way to make the community aware of issues."
To help fund the project, Williams also wrote a FUTURES grant, called Come Glow with Me, in order to purchase five additional black lights and paint. Williams was also assisted by Media Specialist Cynthia Baron who collaborated on the project with poetry.
Because April is National Poetry Month, Baron wanted to connect poetry with other topics such as Earth Day in order for students to learn about the environment and the creatures that live in it. Students wrote poems on leaf-shaped paper that glowed under the UV lights and looked like regular leafs when the lights were gone.
Kindergarteners through second-grade students received butterfly pupa to later release. Baron has also been teaching her students about research and being able to use the facts they have found to turn it into art.
Baron said bringing the whole school together was a way to connect the different ways of portraying art with the current curriculum.
"We all have to teach, not to the standards, but with the standards," Baron said. "I tie the standards to ELA or research or science, wherever I can, so I'm always looking at what the other classes are doing and how can I connect it."
