After School: Brain Quests, Games of Chess, Fun New Dances, and Leaf Piles!

The 2000 Point Question: What is Mr. Nall's favorite food?
A: Donuts.

Mr. Nall's Brain Quest Quiz pairs students up into different teams and tests their knowledge of animal science, math, geography, dates/time, and earth science! Each round is different because Mr. Nall gives the students a new 'hotline' to use if they're not sure what the answer is. Some of the hotlines used are Phone-a-Friend, Ask the Audience, or Take a Second Guess. Sometimes Mr. Nall even has neat prizes for the students for participating, like buttons and stickers! These students are learning so much and having fun while doing it!

The students in Chess learn how to move their pawns, rooks, and knights
in order to capture the king!

Meanwhile in Chess Class, the students learn the fundamentals and techniques used in one of  the greatest games of strategy. Mr. Ryan talks about the functions and the type of action each piece can do. Chess is a game where you need all the pieces of the game to do a different task to work towards one goal: capture the other players king! By learning the special moves that each piece can do, these students are learning how to play a more strategic game with each lesson.

Hip Hop Dance rehearsal (from a potential
audience member perspective)

The Hip Hop Dance class has been working very hard on their new dance routine. They've been rehearsing a new dance with choreography by Ms. Denis. It will be very exciting to see the dance they all will perform at the Winter Showcase!

Ms. Stinson helps Eli with a question
on his homework packet

After School at STEM also allows students the opportunity to catch up on homework from the school day and then twenty minutes of play time on the playground! The kids at STEM get assistance from Youth Guidance staff with questions they have about homework ...

and then go outside and play fun games! 

Or even work together to make a GIANTLEAF PILE, 

like these students did last week!

Nothing is more fun than jumping in a pile of leaves!

After School Fun! Making Masks, Performing Shakespeare, and Horsing Around

After School at STEM Magnet Academy is a place where both the students and the educators get the opportunity to experiment with new ideas and ways of learning. Whether it's performing Shakespeare, working on dance routines, participating in trivia game shows, or making masks for actors to perform in, these kids get the chance to try new and exciting activities they may not be exposed to in their classroom! It's never an ordinary day in After School!

'A Midsummer's Night Dream' in the Teachers Lounge!

Mr. Nall introduced the Drama students to the work of William Shakespeare, one of the greatest playwrights of all time! Some people might think that Shakespeare is too difficult to understand because of the old language he uses in his plays, but at the heart of all his works is a great story waiting to unfold, and that's what the Drama class focused on today!

 Mr. Nall chose to show a scene from the comedy 'A Midsummer's Night Dream', an incredibly funny play that involves flying fairies, magic transformations, foolish actors, and a fairy queen in love with a donkey! The picture on the left shows just that very scene with Henry (3rd grade) playing Nick Bottom, an actor who is transformed into a donkey by a mischief-making sprite (played by Kanon in 1st grade, not shown in photo). Simone (3rd) Noah (1st) and Declan (1st) are all fairies flying around Nick, who is sleeping. The fairies are amused by his transformation into a donkey. Symone (1st) is Titania, the fairy queen who falls in love with the donkey! One of the great advantages of working from Shakespeare is that you can choose to adapt the 17th-century language that is written into a modern verse, which is exactly what these students did with great success! Chalk being a Shakespearean actor up to the list of awesome talents these students have!

In Water Color Class, the students recreated Albert Durer's famous self-portrait with inventive colors, unique patterns, and a variety of hairstyles and make-up. 

Yes, that's right. Make-up! Some students thought Mr. Durer looked so fancy in his linen clothes, feathered cap, and leather gloves that they thought he was on his way to a date. His long hair was pretty funny too!

Stage Crew got the chance to watch a video of 'War Horse', a fantastic play that is set during World War I and features a life-size working puppet of a horse! This puppet is controlled by three humans inside the costume and a handler on the outside. Here is a video for you to see how the puppet was created and how it works. 

The Stage Crew team set out to make their own version of the horse (named 'Joey' in the play). A team of designers (Brandon, Jurnee, Marx, Morgan) led the puppeteers (Simone, Skyler, Analysa) in figuring out how the horse should be constructed, as well as what features they should include to make it seem more life-like. Simone acted out as the head, using her fingers as the horse's ears to indicate happiness or sadness, Skyler lead the horse's front legs and Analysa followed as the back legs, as well as controlling the tail (made of strings of pieces of paper). 

After practicing inside our classroom, the Stage Crew team took outside to see the horse in full gallop! The team did a great job collaborating together and had fun creating a horse fit for the stage!

Analysa, Skyler, and Simone demonstrate their different roles in making a 'War Horse' inspired- horse puppet.

Giddy-Up! The Stage Crew design team watches on as  horse puppet is off and galloping!

Mateo is a pig.

Max is a Lollipop

Bebel is...BEBEL!

Symone is Rapunzel

 Also, check out some of the great masks that the second group of Stage Crew students made!  The students designed the masks themselves, poked small holes in the side of the mask with a pencil, and then thread yarn through the holes and tied two knots to make a mask they could wear! 

These masks and others will be used in a drama production during the winter showcase this December!

After School Classes- Basketball Practice, Crazy Notecards in Drama, and Painting History in Water Colors!

It's been an exciting first few weeks at After School! The students have been participating in some incredible new classes as well as some of their favorites from last year!

We've Got Game lives up to their name with their Introduction to Basketball class. Students in grades 3-7 are learning the fundamentals of the game such as dribbling, passing, and controlling the ball. 

Coach Erik and Coach JoJo introduced the students to a new game that tests their agility, accuracy, and ball coordination. The game 'Jail Ball' works like 'Knock-Out' with a twist. If a student does not make a shot before his or her competitor then they go to 'jail'. In order to be released from jail, the player's teammate must score a basket which will cause a 'jailbreak'!

In Drama Class, the students have been getting some very interesting prompts from Mr. Nall. Each week, he comes with a bunch of index cards that have random words written on them. Frances in 1st Grade is holding one that simply says 'Pineapples'. Simone in 3rd Grade is holding up a notecard that reads 'Mom, can I stay at his/her house tonight?' 

These two very creative actors came up with a short play using only those two phrases. Hilarity ensued with Frances, acting like a puppy, kept asking Simone for her favorite treat, pineapples, meanwhile Simone kept asking her mom (from the comfort of her bed) if she could have a sleepover with her tropical fruit-loving friend. 

Each student received a different card and the results were just as ambitious and fun to watch as this one!

Water Coloring class is one of Mr. Nall's favorite classes because he gets to show the students some of history's most famous paintings and expose them to a series of styles that have influenced artists around the world! 

Here are some of the paintings we've looked at so far: 'The Mona Lisa (1506)' by Leonardo Da Vinci, 'The Scream (1893)' by Edvard Munch, and 'The Marriage Proposal(1434)' by Jan Van Eyck. Each of these paintings is a prime example of a different type of painting style ranging between realism, surrealism, and symbolism.

Mr. Nall always lets the students choose different ways to paint the picture, because it allows the students to explore the paintings world on their own. Take a look at 'The Scream' painted by Marx on the left. Notice how the wavy lines at the top are green? He interpreted the painting to be set in a pastoral landscape with rolling green hills, while Wyatt chose to make his background a blue sky with a sun, as if the screaming man was catching a sunburn at the beach. Both interpretations are nothing like Munch's original, but each takes a fascinating attempt to answer the hundred-year-old questions, 'Why is the man screaming?'

 Morgan in 3rd grade came up with the idea of turning the wedding robe the groom in Van Eyck's painting is wearing into a candy-cane striped gown, as well as placing colorful dots on the tiles of the floor. The colors and patterns on the clothes make it look like a really fun party! 

After the class has cleaned up the watercoloring supplies, Mr. Nall shows the students what the real painting looks like so they can compare how their painting is different from the one up in the museum. Who knows, maybe history will decide that their interpretation is even better than the original!