SMAART 1st Week Newsletter

Week 1 Newsletter for the 2019 SMAART Program

Parents, see little updates from your child's "major" classes.  Also, we have just a few general notes:

1. Today we held a Code Red Lockdown DRILL. The drill lasted about 15 minutes and our wonderful faculty and students did a great job!  This confirms for us that this will be a safe campus as we continue our summer fun. 
2. We held a FIRE DRILL yesterday and that went well also.
3. Please remember that if you will need to pick your child/ren up early, the BEST way to notify us is with an EMAIL to fineartsoffice@charleston.k12.sc.us or to speak to us directly at 843-746-6438 (leaving a message isn't great - we stay pretty busy)

Advanced Studio Art (A and B)

This week in Advanced Studio Art (A) and (B) students have been learning the basics of drawing (how to hold a pencil, shading techniques, proportions and composition). 

Choreography for the Stage

Choreography for the Stage has been hard at work learning

salsa-inspired choreography and creating their own contemporary

choreography in small groups. Dancers have been leaping, turning,

rolling, and grooving their way through the week. In the next two

weeks they will learn more tools for their choreographic toolbox!

Digital Multimedia

Hello Parents!
Next week Digital Multimedia Design students will continue working on their movies as well as creating interactive game controllers using the MaKey MaKey, coding on Scratch and designing pathways for the Ozobots!
Some are composing music on GarageBand, some are using the green screen to enhance their projects and others will create a SMAART Documentary, highlighting all the majors in this amazing program.
Thanks for sharing your kids with me for these three weeks! They are all super creative risk takers.
Until next week,
Tom Noren

Moved to Move

This week in Moved to Move your students are learning a combination of modern dance technique. We have been memorizing a set warm-up and performing combinations across the floor.  We have also started to explore the word home, and what it can look like through movement. We are learning the beginnings of choreography we will be performing at the end of SMARRT camp. Your dancers have been eager, enthusiastic learners, and a joy to teach! 

SMAART Music Studio

In the music studio, we are hard at work creating our compositions using GarageBand and our Akai MPK MIDI keyboards! Many of the students have completed a few songs and are going back in to master, mix, and add the final touches before moving forward. Earlier in the week, we created songs using the website Incredibox which the students uploaded to our Google Classroom. By the end of next week, each student should be finished with 3-4 songs with a final goal of creating an album. We are having a great time and making great music each and every day. 

Playwriting and Acting

Our amazing playwrights and actors are getting to know each other, participating in creative dramatics, improvisation, drama games and activities.  They are writing modernized versions of folktales, and reading their original scenes.  We are putting together the scenes to create an original presentation to be performed the last week.  Great job actors and writers!

Photography and Light Science

This week majors in Photography & Light Science experimented with paint mixing and color theory. They also created their first cyanotypes. This early photography process uses only the sun and light sensitive paper. Next week we are going to look at work by contemporary photographers. We are also planning a fashion photography shoot. 

Shrek, JR.

This week in Shrek we hit the ground running! We started off listening through the show and getting an idea for the structure of the show. On Wednesday we held auditions and cast our show- that was the toughest job for Mrs. Majewski and Mrs. Reid! Thursday and Friday we spent a lot of time singing and learning some of the big group numbers, and have several numbers staged and ready! In our minors classes, we brainstormed set design ideas, put together costume ideas for the ogre family, and painted set pieces for the show! 

SMAART Singers

Oh.my.goodness! Mr. Rogers and I are SO excited to have such a wonderful roomful of young Singers! This week we’re working to learn the lyrics and notes for opera arias, operetta mashups, and lots of Broadway musical songs. Please ask your Singer to share with you what they’re doing in class. Encourage them to check out both the Greek myth about Orpheus and Eurydice and  Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew as well. Every Singer needs a bucket or box or tub or crate to keep their “toys” organized. Please don’t hesitate to contact either teacher if you have questions or comments.

Steel Drums

Hello SMAART Parents,

It’s already been an extremely productive week for us! We have been hard at work in the Steel Drum room getting adapted to our new instruments and learning new repertoire. We have started each day with a study of musical scales and then transition into learning our performance-based musical literature.

We have started a composition from one of our SMAART instructors called Speak Easy, and are now beginning Time After Time - yes the pop tune from the 80’s! We plan on diving into more musical styles including latin and soca tunes as the weeks progress. Thanks so much, and please contact us with any questions or concerns you may have!

Jake and Ian

Stomp! Down South

The Stomp Down South class is making AMAZING progress!  What a super class!  We are playing buckets and basketballs and rulers and well, so many things.  The students are reading notation, learning sticking techniques and beginning to create some very cool rhythms with the most unusual "sound makers".  I can't wait to see what week 2 will produce!!

Stop! Create! Animate!

Campers are using iPads and construction paper to create their first animated short based on the theme of "Escape".  This thirty second project is introducing them to stop action animation and the story telling element of conflict.

SMAART Strings

SMAART strings is off to a great start! We have two wonderful orchestras, Primo and Finale, that are working on a mix of classical music and pop tunes. Each student has also been assigned to a small chamber duet, trio, or quartet. Get ready to enjoy everything from a classical Bourrée trio to an orchestral arrangement of Game of Thrones at our Thursday evening concert on June 27! In addition to performing music, students are studying music theory and will be composing their own short pieces next week. Lastly, we are practicing Alexander Technique in order to improve body awareness and discover healthy habits to prevent tension and pain while playing our instruments.