Each winter, Brewster 5th graders participate in a 5-week poetry residency, working with Methow Arts teaching poet Kelleigh McMillan. Students become familiar with “painting pictures with words” and with relating their emotions to the natural world. Each week they experiment with a different poetic concept: simile, metaphor, free verse, stanza, etc. Students write poems about their bedrooms,… [Read More]

by Ashley Lodato, Methow Arts Alliance – Arts Education Director no one    comes                        to     relieve me  of this     solitude         presented     to me                     on a     silver platter              in all its     splendor and i welcome    the heartache ~ from “Abandoned Tree” by Liliana Hart-Beck For a kid raised in the valley, the Methow… [Read More]

by Ashley Lodato Education Director, Methow Arts Alliance When do you get to see the Methow Valley Elementary School art room filled with eagles, cougars, rattlesnakes, herons, and black widows? Second graders know the answer to this–when Jody Olson visits the school, that’s when. Olson, a Riverside artist and art teacher, has been leading papier-mâché residencies… [Read More]

[METHOW ARTS EDUCATION REPORT] Third graders at Brewster Elementary School integrated biology, watercolors, and 3D design in a residency that allowed them a close study of owls. The art residency was preceded by a classroom unit on the habits, characteristics, and habitats of various nocturnal animals. Working with Twisp artist and naturalist Bruce Morrison, students… [Read More]

Second graders at Methow Valley Elementary School combined fiber arts with their garden experience in a felted wool residency. This is an excellent example of true integration of various subjects- writing, reading, science and art. Every student is successful with this project. ~ Kathy Williams, second grade teacher and Classroom in Bloom board member Working with… [Read More]