is presentation is not about turning art class into a game; it is about asking what teachers can learn from game designers about structure, choice, challenge, and creative participation. The central idea is simple: curriculum is the game we design for learning. Using game design as a playful metaphor for curriculum planning, participants will examine how goals, rules, materials, constraints, feedback, and student choice can help learners explore, experiment, take risks, and make meaningful artistic decisions.
Come create a polymer clay Pocket Pal! Find out how we had our pre-K students and middle school students collaborate to design and create miniature creatures to support our little ones with their biggest feelings. Materials provided.
Explore the rich connections between artistic and scientific thinking in this interactive session. Through open-ended artmaking and reflective discussion, participants will examine how choice-based classrooms can function as both studios and labs, spaces of observation, experimentation, and discovery. Leave with flexible ideas and strategies that bridge creative and critical inquiry.
We will be presenting a lesson on creating maracas using clay! In this lesson we will dive into how to create the base maraca shape from simple pinch pots, and how to manipulate the shape and add additional details to transform it into something new. This lesson can easily be differentiated for a variety of skill levels, and includes excellent cross- curriculum connections to science as we explore how the size and shape of our maracas affects the sound they create. Each participant will receive our slides presentation and resources for this lesson, as well as the opportunity to create their own clay maraca.
