News Archive Spring 2005
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Summer Lab 2005
Summer Lab 2005 concluded with its typically climactic week on July 29.
Please visit http://summerlab.org to see some
of the sights and hear some of the sounds of the great fun summer session.
A million thanks to all who participated: students, campers, counselors,
teachers, assistants, moms, dads, aunts, uncles, grandparents and
everybody.
Your feedback is most welcome -
please click
"Contact Us" at
"Inside Summer Lab" after you've
seen the slide show and all the pictures at the web site.
See you next summer!
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Adventure Kids 5th Birthday a Big Splash
Adventure Kids Day Camp is in its fifth year and having a great, if hot,
summer. Summer Lab participation has set new records and, better yet,
the children are having an excellent time. Visit
summerlab.org for a look at our photo galleries
and announcements about upcoming season-ending show times during the
week of July 25th. Shows include Summer Lab on Stage's Jump, Jive
& Wail at the U of C's court theater, DramaDance at Lab's
1001 Nights adaptation, and more.
Call (773) 834-7766 for details.
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Summer Lab News
With Summer Lab kicking off on June 20th, parents, campers, and students can
join in all the excitement at
http://summerlab.org. From exploring
Mexican culture to the natural world around us, photos and reflections of
our students' activities can be seen in updates, slideshows, and photo
galleries. Come back regularly for more Summer Lab 2005 excitement!
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Commencement
One hundred and thirteen members of the class of 2005
marched down the aisle of Rockefeller Memorial Chapel to begin
this year's graduation ceremony. The featured commencement
speaker was Ann Marie Lipinski, editor of the Chicago Tribune.
Student addresses were given by Adam Wright, Colin Flood
and Kelsey Karp, and music was provided by teacher
Katy Sinclair and students Anthony Oliveria, Caroline Robertson,
and Patrick and Matthew Macellaio.
This year's senior class featured two Intel Science Award
semi-finalists, 60 Illinois State Scholars, 17 National Merit
finalists, and two National Achievement finalists.
Two seniors are deferring their college plans; the rest
completed 786 applications to 192 colleges in the US, Canada,
and the UK, with a 55% acceptance rate. Of the 83 students who
applied for early decision or early action, 42 were admitted to the
college of their choice. The acceptance rate to the Ivy League
was 22%, twice the national average of 9-12% at Ivy League schools.
Six Lab graduates will be enrolling at George Washington University in the
fall; six at the University of Illinois; four at NYU; and three
each at Harvard, Miami of Ohio, Northwestern, Tufts, the University
of Michigan, the University of Southern California, the University
of Wisconsin, Washington University, and Yale.
Congratulations to the class of 2005!
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Labstock
High school students and faculty celebrated the end of the school
year with a musical festival in Kenwood Mall. Student bands played
and sang on the school steps as Dean of Students
Larry McFarlane grilled burgers and brats for an appreciative audience.
Click to view movie clips of two of the performances:
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Mr. Derbes in the News
Physics teacher David Derbes is featured in the Chicago Tribune's
Tempo section, speaking on the equality of men and women
in the sciences.
Read the article here.
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Surrealism and Impressionism
The Art Institute
was recently a final exam venue for sixth and
eighth grade French students studying Surrealism and Impressionism.
Sixth graders learned about Surrealism by exploring various surrealist
and dada activities: the dada poem, the exquisite corpse, rayographies,
collage, and frottage. Through the medium of Impressionism,
eighth grade students focused on writing, note-taking, and
looking at painting critically. Following their final exams,
sixth graders enjoyed a Surrealist picnic
in Scammons, while the eighth graders lunched at La Sardine.
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Senior Prom
The class of 2005 crowned their King and Queen at last weekend's prom.
One hundred and eighty-seven seniors, guests, and chaperones dined,
danced, and enjoyed Chicago's skyline at the
Adler Planetarium.
The high school Jazz Band provided preprandial music; a DJ spun discs
for dancing after dinner.
This is the second time in recent years that the Planetarium has
hosted U-High's senior prom; in other years, venues have included
the Field Museum, Shedd Aquarium, the 95th floor of the
John Hancock, and last year's celebration at the Drake Hotel.
Next year's prom will be held at the
Museum of Contemporary Art.
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Classroom Buddies
Students have been enjoying the spring weather with their classroom
buddies. Sixth graders brought their Camp MacLean experience
home and showed their nursery school friends how to create giant
bubbles. Second grade and nursery school students teamed up
to plant flowers in the Lillie House garden. A third grade class
and their N/K buddies learned about transportation together and
created a display for the Blaine Lobby. Other groups have been
reading, picnicking, and playing together as the school year draws
to a close.
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March of the Living
Seniors Shoshana Sprague and Paul Schutz with their May Project
Advisor Susan Shapiro participated in the
March of the Living at
Auschwitz-Birkenau, Poland on May 5. Shoshana and Paul are among 89
seniors who have spent the month of May in projects of their own
design that have taken some of them all over the world and given them
the opportunity to study or work in fields outside of school. The
seniors will present their projects at the May Project Gala, Thursday,
June 2 from 7:00 to 9:00pm in Belfield Gym.
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Seventh Grade Volunteer Work
As a way of taking constructivist action about what they had come
to understand about poverty, the seventh grade volunteered at the
Chicago Food Depository,
participating in such activities as packing 360 emergency boxes for
needy families. The seventh grade curriculum includes a reading of
Our America, a book by LeAlan Jones and Lloyd Newman about
their experiences growing up in CHA's Ida B. Wells Homes.
This year's curriculum also included a talk by the Depository's CEO,
Mr. Michael Mulqueen.
The middle school has been raising money for the Depository for
several years. This year $500 was raised during Hunger Day and
another $400 at the Science Food Fest and the Student Council
Middle School Talent Show.
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School Night at the Apple Store
Students and teachers are preparing for Project Gen Y's first School
Night at the Apple Store, to be held on Tuesday May 24 from 7:00
to 9:00 p.m. at Apple's flagship North Michigan Avenue store. This
technology open house will showcase the technological achievements of
several Lab Schools students and teachers. Projects on display include
digitally produced art, photography, and movies, digital storytelling and
documentation, and student-produced video games and web sites.
The entire school community is invited to attend!
Project Gen Y is an after-school
program for middle schoolers, that follows the
Generation-Yes
curriclum. Led by Lucy Gray and Christopher Jones,
this course focuses on student-powered technology integration. Students
work with teachers to create collaborative projects; this collaboration
provides the students with project-based learning and the teachers
with on-site, sustainable professional development. Gen Y students are
sponsoring the School Night by providing support and publicity.
School Night Schedule:
In the Theatre:
- Introductory Remarks (Lucy Gray and Christopher Jones)
- Renaissance Vol. 25 (Brian Wildeman)
- iMovie: The Reenactment of the Murder of Carter Harrison (Max Wagner)
- Cuéntame Un Cento (Tell Me a Story): Extending listening and speaking p
ractice beyond the classroom (Becky Lopez)
- A Revolution in Programming: Eighth Grade Computer Science Projects (Marty Bil
lingsley)
- Web Server with PHP Database for Student-Run Clubs (Colin Flood)
- Digital Time Capsule (Karen Putman and Matthew Jungert)
At the Computer Stations:
- PowerPoint Presentation: How to Live a Happy and Successful Life in Sixth Grad
e (Shane Selig and Christian Yoder)
- Project Gen Y: A Student-Created Teacher's Web Site (Jack Power)
- Seventh Grade iMovie Project (Daniel Simmons-Marengo & Warren Shepro)
- Eighth Grade iMovie Project (Paul Bissonnette)
- Community Service Learning Video (Maureen Gauntner)
- Eighth Grade Digital Photography (Liese Ricketts )
- Renaissance (Brian Wildeman)
The
Apple
Store at North Michigan Avenue is located at 679 N. Michigan Ave.
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Middle School Talent Show
The Middle School Student Council, in conjunction with faculty advisor
David Harris and the music department, presented the second annual
middle school talent show. Dance exhibitions and a martial arts
display were interspersed with musical performances that ranged from
classical to jazz to rock 'n roll, using the violin, flute,
trumpet, clarinet, cello, bass, drums, guitar, piano
and—above all—voice.
Click to view some of the performances:
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Students Prepare for Rites of May
Students, faculty and parents are preparing for Lab's annual
end-of-the-year festival: the Rites of May. This long-standing
Lab tradition has taken on many forms over the years, but always
includes a high school theatre production staged in the courtyard.
This year's festival also features a nightly carnival, an
international festival, a global café, and a family fun run.
Thursday
- Carnival, Food and Fun in Blaine Courtyard (5:00-7:00)
Visit Shakespeare's Garden and Prospero's Island as U-High Theatre
offers displays and hands-on activities to complement its production
of The Tempest. See flowers mentioned in Shakespeare's plays,
make a May basket, collect seashells on Prospero's beach, and other
surprises.
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Scholastic Book Fair in Belfield 141 (4:00-8:00)
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Fifth Grade Band Concert in Judd 126 (7:00-8:00)
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Opening night of The Tempest (8:00)
Friday
- Carnival, Food and Fun in Blaine Courtyard (5:00-7:00)
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Scholastic Book Fair in Belfield 141 (4:00-8:00)
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The Tempest, performed by the U-High Theatre (8:00)
Saturday
- Family Fun Run on the Midway (10:15-11:00)
A one-mile family fun run/walk. Check-in and warm-up starts at 10:15;
the run/walk gets underway at 10:40.
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International Festival in Sunny Gym and Kenwood Mall (11:00-5:00)
The International Festival features crafts and traditions from around
the world, with international dances performed throughout the day.
Outdoors, a carnival with a giant 25-foot inflatable slide and
inflatable obstacle course offers games and prizes for the whole family.
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Global Café in Kovler Gym (11:00-3:00)
Enjoy tastes from around the world in this international food festival.
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Scholastic Book Fair in Belfield 141 (4:00-8:00)
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The Tempest, performed by the U-High Theatre (8:00)
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Middle School Spring Musical
The middle school gave three performances of its spring musical production,
Working. Directed by John Biser and led in song by musical director Katy
Sinclair, the twenty-member cast put on a bone fide, full-length musical.
A nine-member student crew, under the direction of Lisa Biser, contributed a
beautiful and functional set and a sophisticated blend of light and sound.
Click to view some short selections from the production:
Cleaning Woman
(4.4 MB),
Just a Housewife
(3.3 MB),
It's an Art
(5.2 MB),
Newsboy
(3.5 MB).
Director John Biser writes:
The musical "Working," an adaptation of Studs Terkel's best-selling book,
opened on Broadway on May 15, 1978. The piece has been revised over the
years to keep pace with the ever-changing landscape of the American workplace.
The music was composed by a variety of artists including Stephen Schwartz and James Taylor.
Studs Terkel, born Louis Terkel in New York in 1912, moved with his family
to Chicago in 1922. From 1926 to 1936 his family ran a rooming house at
Wells Street and Grand Avenue. Mr. Terkel credits much of his knowledge
of the diverse American work force to conversations with tenants, as well
as his adventures in nearby Bughouse Square, a meeting place for workers,
labor organizers, and the unemployed.
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Math Team has Record Year
The U-High Math Team this year had a record 23 qualifiers for the American
Invitational Mathematics Examination. These students' scores in the ACM-12
examination place them in the top five percent of students nationwide and
qualify
them for the AIME exam. Congratulations to Andrew Hoffman, Jeffrey Kuan,
Sarah Constantin, Rob Webber, Alice Easton, Ray Padgett, Anthony Oliveira,
Sai Li, Andrew Sugaya, Zach Beatty, Matt Barber, Bradley Spahn,
Leigh Casadaban,
Ang Ma, Karthik Sarma, Charles Zhang, Ilana Rotmensch, Jack Miner, Kim Cho,
Robert Dellsy, Katharine Lauderdale, and Francesco Michelassi. Andrew Hoffman
was
our school winner for the second year in a row with a score of 127.5.
Jeffrey Kuan was second with 126.5. Also qualifying for the AIME was
eighth-grader Emily Kuo who was the school winner on the AMC 10 with a
score of 125.5. Other notable scores on the AMC 10 were achieved by
Frank Firke, Mark Christianson, David McAlpine and Katherine Zhou.
Jeffrey Kuan qualified for the USA Mathematical Olympiad contest based on his
combined score in the AMC-12 and the AIME. He was one of 259 people throughout
the country invited to take this nine-hour test. Jeff placed in the top 50%
on the USAMO. Andrew Hoffman and Matt Barber also had high scores on the AIME.
The Math Team, lead by head coach Jane Canright and assistant coaches Shirley
Holbrook, Paul Gunty, Nadja Aquino, and Farukh Khan, competed in several
contests during the course of the school year.
In the North Suburban Mathematics League,
U-High placed 11th overall of the 55
schools participating, Lab's highest overall ranking in recent years. The
juniors ended up sixth overall and second in their division. All-conference
teams have not yet been announced.
In the Illinois Math League,
U-High won their region and tied for seventh
overall in the state. Rob Webber was our school winner. Other top scorers
were Jeff Kuan, Sarah Constantin, Andrew Hoffman, Sai Li, Frank Firke
and Andrew Sugaya.
In the Illinois Council of Teachers of Mathematics
Contest, U-High won their
regional, sweeping almost all the individual events. At the state level U-High
finished second to Walter Payton Prep in Division 2A.
State individual results:
- Andrew Hoffman, First Place Precalculus (perfect score)
- Matt Barber, Second Place Precalculus
- Jeffrey Kuan, Second Place Algebra II
- Rob Webber, Second Place Algebra I
- Frank Firke, Fourth Place Algebra I
State team results:
- Algebra I Team, First Place (Rob Webber, Frank Firke, David McAlpine,
Katherine Zhou, Mark Christianson, Liwen Xu)
- Geometry Team, Fourth Place (Angel Pu, Hugh Montag, Andrew Sugaya,
Katharine Lauderdale, Bradley Spahn, Karthik Sarma)
- Algebra II Team, Third Place (Jeffrey Kuan, Yayan Zhang, Leigh Casadaban,
David Tang, Alice Grossman, Sarah Constantin)
- Precalculus Team, First Place (Andrew Hoffman, Matt Barber, Alice Easton,
Robert Dellsy, Tim He, San K. Seul)
- Calculator Team, First Place (Matt Barber, Zach Beatty, Jordan Pelander,
Andrew Sugaya, David McAlpine)
- Junior/Senior 8-Person Team, Fifth Place (Charles Zhang, Danielle Morse,
Alice Easton, Jeni Lloyd, Emily Arntson, Sai Li, Becca Nusbaum,
Katie Shakman)
- Junior/Senior Relay Team, Fifth Place (Robert Dellsy, San Seul,
Jordan Pelander, Leigh Casadaban)
- Freshman/Sophomore 2-person Team, First Place (Katharine Lauderdale,
Rob Webber)
- Junior/Senior 2-person Team, Seventh Place (Andrew Hoffman,
Sarah Constantin)
- Orals, First Place (Andrew Hoffman, presenter, Sarah Constantin,
assistant)
Other contributing team members were Won-Hee Lee, David Zu, John Wasik,
Radhika Attele, Helen Jin, and Ruoyu Wang.
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The New Dr. Spock
Members of the Lab Schools community recently gathered for a talk entitled
Education and Brain Development: Dewey Was Right by "the new
Dr. Spock," Robert Needlman, M.D.. Dr. Needlman, a Lab alum and son
of teacher emeritus Gloria Needlman, is Associate Professor of Pediatrics
at Case Western Reserve University, and co-founder of
Reach Out and Read, a
national organization that promotes reading aloud to young children.
After the talk, Dr. Needlman signed copies of his new book, the
recently published 8th edition of the classic, Dr. Spock's Baby and
Child Care. Dr. Needlman has updated the book for the 21st century,
and thus shares authorship credit with the late Dr. Benjamin Spock.
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Freshman Service Day
The entire freshman class of the Lab School, together with teachers,
partnered with area environmental organizations, including the Chicago
Field Museum, the Sierra Club, the Cook County Forest Preserve and
the Geography Department of Chicago State University to take part in
a day's worth of hands-on activities to learn about stewardship and
restoration of the Calumet region.
Activities will take place in the Kinder Morgan Prairie at the junction
of 122nd Street and Stony Island Avenue,
and include putting down erosion control mats, taking
water samples and using handheld GPS units to map the stewardship
area. The students are part of a six-year partnership between the
Calumet is My
Back Yard (CIMBY) environmental leadership program
and the Kinder Morgan Prairie, and are working toward a goal of
creating a natural prairie on three acres of industrial property.
This is the first time in the history of the program that all
the freshman in a class have devoted themselves to the project.
Recent developments in the Calumet Region—including the
redevelopment of the Acme Coke Plant, a proposed redevelopment
of the CID Landfill into Gateway Park, and the extension
of the Illinois and Michigan Canal National Heritage
Corridor—poise the region to become the garden of Chicago.
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Sutherland Award Winners
The Sutherland Award winners have been announced! From five picture books,
students have elected their top choice in three categories:
Best Illustration, Best Text, and Best Overall Picture Book. For the first
time in the award's eleven-year history one book has won all
three categories: Arrowhawk,
written by Lola M. Schaefer and illustrated by Gabi Swiatkowska.
The other candidates this year were Knuflebunny by Mo Williams,
The Wishing of Biddy Malone, written by Joy Cowley and illustrated by
Christopher Denise,
Sidewalk Circus, written by Paul R. Fleischman and illustrated by Kevine Hawkes,
and The Big Ugly Monster and the Little Stone Rabbit by Chris Wormell.
Students in the third through fifth grades participate in the Sutherland
Award program, named for Zena Sutherland, a former University of Chicago
professor of Library Science and Lab Schools parent. Growing
from student dissatisfaction with Caldecott Award books chosen by adults
(the American Library Association), the Sutherland Awards
provide a forum for critical review and discussion of literature in
picture book format, culminating in a student vote recognizing excellence
in the categories of Best Illustration, Best Text and Best Overall
Picture Book.
As part of the process, students discuss the role of the illustrator, the
importance of interesting writing—as well as an interesting story—and
how words and pictures work together, and learn to participate in critical
discussion based on text and illustration. Third graders create voting
posters in the computer labs. Fourth graders fill out review forms for
each book. Fifth graders write original reviews and paint beautiful
posters which decorate the libraries and promote the books.
A committee of 6th graders, well practiced in review and discussion, pick
the five candidates to be voted upon. They select the five books from a
group of about fifteen chosen by the librarians based on professional
reviews and recommendations as well as their own critical appraisal.
After the vote, a winning author from a previous year comes to speak to
students and announce the new year's winners. Paul Zelinsky and Eric
Kimmel are among the very high profile authors who have visited our school
in connection with the Sutherland Program. Linda Bailey, author of the
2004 Sutherland Award for Best Overall Picture Book for her book
Stanley's Party, gave an inspiring talk to our students this year.
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Exploring the Oregon Trail
Students in Eli Johnson's second grade classroom are studying
pioneer life and travel on the Oregon Trail. They began in computer
class by playing Oregon Trail,
a game that teaches children about the choices pioneers had to make
with regards to weather, illness, and purchasing supplies. This
computer experience had the children talking about the Oregon
Trail experience throughout the day, and about the wagons in
particular. "We have to make a lot of hard decisions like when
you have to cross the rivers. If you are only four and a half feet
tall and the river is deeper you don't want to ford it. You
will want to caulk the wagon and float across" (Adam Fine)
Ms. Johnson and her assistant, Janice Cincotta, decided to take
the students' interest a step further and study pioneers, the
Oregon Trail, quilts and the covered wagon in the classroom. In
particular, the covered wagon was such an essential part of the
pioneers' journey west that it seemed an obvious direction to take
the unit. They organized construction of a large covered wagon
replica in the classroom that the children could actually spend a
day in, and filled the classroom wagon with artifacts to make the
wagon play experience specific to the pioneers' daily life.
Some of the artifacts included an iron skillet, a slate and chalk,
bonnets and calico dresses, sun hats, suspenders and vests, tin
plates, pitchers and wooden crates and baskets.
As they were building the wagon, one child asked, "Ms. Johnson why
did they put covers on their wagons anyway?" (Taylor Reifert) The
class talked about the idea that the wagon was a home on wheels and
the home needed a roof, and then decided to create a whole wagon train
so the students might get the feel for the community these moving
homes created. Each child built a covered wagon using a shoebox,
construction and tissue papers, pipe cleaners and lots of glue.
In fact they went through an entire gallon for this pioneer unit!
Reading the book I'm Sorry Almira Ann by Jane Kurtz gave
students the idea to individualize their shoebox wagons by choosing
different colors and patterns for the covers.
Students had lots to say about the project. "Making the wagons was fun.
We got a lot of glue on our hands. Getting messy was fun."
(Christine Obert-Hong & Kevin Li) "The studying about what they did
was so different from now. You look back see how different and
interesting life was back then." (Hannah Blau)
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Fairy Tales Come Alive
In a 20-year-old Lab tradition, nursery school and kindergarten students
were enthralled by an enactment of several fairy tales by high
school students. As part of Acting Studio, a beginning acting
class, the high schoolers wrote variations on traditional fairy tales,
developed the staging for each, and put on two performances for
their young schoolmates in Blaine's little theatre.
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Foreign Language Day
With singing, dancing, and lots of eating, fifth grade German,
French and Spanish students spent a day participating in activities
centered around their foreign language studies.
Thirty-four French students began the day with a Matisse-centered
art activity where they created decoupage projects. They then
presented folk dances from Haiti, Quebec and France to lower school
students, inviting the audience to join in the dancing. Lunch was
classic French bistro fare at La Sardine in the west loop, after
which students returned to school school for an activity on French
sounds and animal noises.
Sixty-four Spanish students created ponchos in an arts and crafts
project before heading to the Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum in
Pilsen, where they also visited a public library and sampled churros.
They then traveled to Little Village to eat and explore.
The entire community of German students at Lab (grades three
to twelve), exchange students, teachers, and parents, gathered
to sing songs and enjoy a buffet lunch. In other activities,
fifth and sixth grade German students made musli with a chef,
did a graphics project in the computer lab, listened to stories,
played German games, and participated in a spoon-puppet art project.
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Emotions Run High at Junior Retreat
The junior class recently spent three days at the Resurrection Center in Woodstock,
Illinois,
on an annual retreat that focuses on community building.
Students worked with facilitators in
small group and large group activities to work on comraderie and mutual appreciation.
The climax of the retreat is a candlelight session
in which the entire class listens while each student tells their story.
This ceremony for the class of '06 lasted a record six hours, ending in the small
hours of the morning.
During their spare time,
students relaxed by playing ping pong, basketball, touch football, foosball, pool
and bumper pool, and hiking and enjoying the bonfire.
This retreat has been held annually at Woodstock since 1988. Students often look
back at this experience as their favorite Lab School retreat.
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German Exchange Students Visit Lab
Lab families are currently hosting 14 German exchange students from the
Königin-Katharine-Stift Gymnasium in Stuttgart, Germany.
Many of the students are in the United States for the first time and have
enjoyed their immersion in
American culture. They have attended classes with their
hosts, taken a boat tour on Lake Michigan,
attended a baseball game, seen Chicago's historic skyscrapers,
seen Willy Wonka and the Chocolate
Factory on the big screen at Doc Films, shopped the magnificent mile,
and explored the Robie House, but it has not all been fun and games.
Nearly half
the exchange students volunteered to participate in the Lab's community
service program by tutoring children at the St. Martin de Porres
shelter for women and children, and working at Vital Bridges, a grocery
store for AIDS patients.
Sixteen Lab School students will have their chance to be guests instead of
hosts when they head to Stuttgart for four weeks in June and July.
Like their German counterparts, they will live with host families,
attend classes at the Königin-Katharine-Stift Gymnasium, sight-see,
and become immersed in German culture.
The exchange students leave on Friday, April 15th, so take the
chance to say "Guten Tag" before you have to say "Auf Wiedersehen."
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Earth Day Groceries Project
Hundreds of Lab School students are decorating grocery bags for the
Earth Day Groceries Project,
an environmental awareness project that
teams up youth and grocers to spread the message of Earth Day.
Teachers around the world borrow paper grocery bags from local
grocery stores. Students decorate the bags with environmental messages
about reuse, recycling, wildlife, etc. The bags are then returned
to the grocery stores, and on Earth Day (April 22) customers receive
their groceries—along with the message that kids care about
our environment—in the decorated bags.
Last year Lab School students decorated 341 bags; this year they
hope to top that number. The bags will be on display at the Hyde Park
Co-op for a week before Earth Day, and then distributed to customers
with their groceries on April 22.
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Woodlawn Playground Finished
The Woodlawn Nursery School's new playground is now complete!
The result of a school fundraising effort, the playground features
a climbing wall, two sandboxes, a deck, a gazebo, a playhouse,
and several interconnected climbing structures with ladders, tunnels,
slides, stairs, monkey bars, bridges, steering wheels, telescopes,
and a beanstalk reaching to the sky. Included in the new construction
is an underground sprinkler system, landscaping, and the installation
of a soft playing surface.
In addition to the permanent playground equipment there several
sheds filled with equipment for the students to use, from sleds,
tricycles, wheelbarrows and wagons to shovels, rakes, brooms and balls.
Woodlawn teachers report that "everyone is thrilled!"
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Muntu Dance Theater Performs at Lab
Students and faculty were treated to performances by
the Muntu Dance Theatre of Chicago on Thursday. This Chicago-based
group performs authentic and progressive interpretations of contemporary
and ancient African and African-American dance, music, and folklore.
In the Bantu language, muntu means the essence of humanity.
It's what the Company seeks to express in their work and to touch
in their audiences. The Company is highly regarded for its
innovative repertory, preserving traditional African dance while
creating new works that build on African, Caribbean and
African-American cultural traditions.
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The Glimmer Project
On display in the Blaine Lobby is a work of art called The Glimmer Project,
created by visiting artist Anna Kunz and the entire second grade and some
of the first grade at the Lab Schools.
Anna Kuntz explains the project:
"Art has the power to preserve a moment and to create a depth of
feeling towards the world. The children in this project understood
this from the beginning, and each painting contains a "glimmer"
of this notion.
"The idea for the Glimmer Project came from considering the
structure and images within a haiku poem. The haiku is short
and essential, points towards the poetic potential in everyday
things, starts with a glimmer… and asks us to see something
in nature in a new, and personal way. From speaking with the
teachers, I knew that the children were learning about cycles
and changes, so I thought that they might like to draw on the
knowledge from their lessons. I wanted to show the students
some ways to consider process in order to make a painting,
the nuances of color, and also how the paintings that they each
made would contribute to a community of work resulting in a
large, impressive painting.
"The students each created an 8"x 8" acrylic on panel painting that
explores ideas about nature in transition. To do this, the
students imagined a Midwestern season, they explored shadows and
eliminated details in order to transform an object into a
universal silhouette, explored mark making and layering and
looked at the scale of things—from making very small marks
to very large ones. We also did a series of warm up exercises that
allowed us time to get to know each other, understand that mistakes
were A-OK… and engage the senses. The students worked with
colors that they selected and mixed from a variety of choices.
Finally, they learned that the activity of play can be a serious
element of their own creativity."
Anna Kunz, the Visiting Artist for the Glimmer Project, is a
painter and installation artist who has exhibited nationally
and internationally. She is also an instructor at The School
of the Art Institute, Chicago and Northwestern University,
Evanston. She was encouraged from a young age by her parents and
grandparents to carefully notice
the visual world. She has been painting and writing poems since she
was 4 years old. Many teachers inspired her along the way, and
she visited the collections at the Art Institute of Chicago often.
Her most significant memory was at age eight when she stood in
front of a Mark Rothko color field painting. The painting seemed
mysterious and beautiful. It was beyond anything she knew
a painting could be and it broke all of the art rules that she
was learning about in second grade. She thought she heard the
painting making noise. To this day, she doesn't know if that was
her imagination or not. It doesn't matter. She loves to share
her enthusiasm and understanding of painting with others—especially
young people.
"There is nothing that can compare to the inherent intellectual abilities
of children when they look at painting, or when they are making a
painting. There is a purity of response, and love of the process and
the material. Children privilege their subconscious minds when they
paint, and it is always exciting. I want to thank the 137 children
of the Lab school that I worked with for the overflow of
inspiration."
The exhibit will be on display in Blaine Lobby until April 11.
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