Somersaults, a 2nd School Mural, and Reading at Chicago Zine Fest!

What better way to kick off the afternoon than with a bunch of somersaults in Fitness Fun class! Ms. Dennis taught the students that there's more to the art of rolling on the floor than meets the eye. She laid out yoga mats on the gym floor and stage and instructed the students in the art of tumbling. Check out these awesome pictures she captured!

Rollin'... 

...rollin'...

...rollin'...

Keep those bodies rollin'!

Have you seen the new school mural in the front entryway? If you have then you know how incredible it is and what a great job the teachers, staff, and students did. The After School students loved it so much that for Watercolor class we decided to replicate the mural, taping together all the paintings we could make, and giving it as a big THANK YOU to the art teacher, Ms. Londay who organized the project. 

Teachers and Staff put the finishing touches on the Entryway Mural

The Watercolor class paint their favorite panels from the mural...

...and then tape their painting together into an honorary mural for Ms. Londay.

A new mural is created!

This weekend was a very busy one for Mr. Nall. He's one of the organizers for Chicago Zine Fest, a two day celebration of emerging writers, artists, and self-publishers. Over 200 exhibitors and thousands of people attended the fest this weekend at Plumbers' Union Hall, and happily enough, some of them were STEM students!

Exhibitors and attenChicago Zine Fest 2015 at Plumber's Union Hall

Alexia Wolf and Henry Benton performed short poetry pieces in front of a live audience of nearly one hundred people! They did such a great job that people were even coming up to them asking for AUTOGRAPHS! Great job to both of you and your achievements!

Alexia Wolf recites her poems 'French Fries' and 'Smoothies' at the Chicago Zine Fest Youth Reading

A fan asks for Alexia's autograph!

Other STEM students were there in the form of the comic books they create in Mr. Nall's Comic Class. The students' comics cost $1 and all the proceeds go to funding the After School program. Here is one happy customer holding a comic about soccer by Kindergartener, Frances Milroy. 

A Zine Fest patron excitedly purchases a copy of a comic book by Frances!

Drama Class Creativity and Youth Reading at the Chicago Zine Fest!

 

Mr. Nall's Drama Class is always fun, experimental, chaotic (chaotic with energy and creative ideas- the best kind of chaos imaginable!)  The students really let their imaginations grab hold of the prompts Mr. Nall provides and go running with them! It's been really great seeing the students take leadership of certain roles in the drama games as well. 





Whether it's writing, acting, or directing in a scene- the drama students have really mastered the ability to improvise with any situation thrown at them! Students will receive a prompt that gives the who, what, and where of the scene, and then with a team of students writing out the action of the scene and a group of directors describing how the actors should use the prompt to tell the most interesting story, a story is created and a creative ensemble is born!

This week, we asked students outside of the Drama Class to write some scenarios that the Drama students would have to act out. 

The prompts were pretty simple: students would write a fairly normal sentence, but leave a noun blank, leaving the actor to decide what would go in its place. For example, the prompt would read 'It's raining ______ outside today!', Sofia and Riley would select this prompt and insert 'Watermelons' in place of the blank, and then proceed to act out their reaction to fruit falling from the sky!

More exciting news from the Drama Class! STEM's very own students will be participating in a reading this Friday called 'The Next Generation: A Youth Reading', organized through the Chicago Zine Fest! CZF is a two-day celebration of writers, artists, and self-publishers. Three STEM students will participate: 2nd grader Henry Benton, 3rd grader Alexia Wolf, and 5th grader Jacob Watson will read original poetry in front of an audience of Chicago's most talented writers! The event is on Friday, May 8th and takes place at Access Living (115 W. Chicago Ave.) from 7-8 p.m. The event is free and open to the public. Come out and support our STEM kids!