School Blog
Insights from the team behind Appamada School
The Ten-Year Play
When the excitement of creation comes from newness and experimentation, where does the energy come from ten years on?
Art is life. Life is art.
Last semester ended with a bang as we incorporated an outdoor red carpet to showcase the students’ creations in Junior High Fashion Upcycling, as well as a Market Day to share the entrepreneurial skills of the High School #artsales class. I couldn’t be more proud.
3D Art: Modeling, Texturing, Printing, and more
In this digital art class, students are learning Blender, 3D-modeling software that allows users to build virtual geometry to create three-dimensional forms, then decorate them with textures, lighting, animations and more. Blender is widely used in both independent and professional projects, including video game development, film, cartoon animations, architecture, and so on.
Keeping Current with People, Places, and Events: Social Studies in Action
As a history and social studies teacher, I am often mistaken for that instructor many of us had who hammered names and dates into our overwhelmed brains. The one who had classwork or homework focused on historical events neatly labeled and packaged into questions like, “When did this happen, who did it happen to, and where did it happen.”
Science at Appamada
One thing I love about teaching science at Appamada is that I get to design my own classes from the ground up. Based on students’ suggestions and votes, we ended up with the following classes for this semester: “Cultural Chemistry,” “Disease Detectives,” and an “To Infinity and Beyond,”
Things to Help Us Connect
In the music class “Guitar, Bass & Ukulele,” which I teach at Appamada School, we generally start by playing a scale. So far we’ve gone through all the diatonic modes of the major scale (one scale being based on Do, one on Re, one on Me etc.) and are now making our way through the pentatonic modes.
Crafts: Empowering Creativity in Elementary School
This is the second semester that I am honored to hold space for Crafts. What I love the most about this class is the fluidity, as every class the students have the opportunity to explore their artistry, voice their ideas, and reaffirm their uniqueness.
Theatre from Scratch: Something Old Becomes Something New
For students coming from conventional schools and theatre programs, how we make theatre at Appamada (formerly Skybridge) can land somewhere between confusing to intimidating. It requires a mindshift from thinking about plays as ‘movies you pretend to be in’ to ‘a living, participatory art you create.’ Last semester, I finally, finally stumbled on a way to describe our process that revealed how exciting it can be.