Elementary School Receives Arts Grant

Kindergarten students at Mount Daniel Elementary School will soon get to create a unique three-dimensional sculpture, thanks to funding from the Washington Post Grants in the Arts program.  Kindergarten teacher Mary Anne Graves, art teacher Norma Pfaff and paraprofessional Laurie Connole submitted the grant proposal in an effort to bring a new learning experience to some of the school division’s youngest students.

“Much of primary art is two-dimensional,” Graves said.  “In this project, each student will create a three-dimensional sculpture, and students will be able to interact with the sculptural pieces by rearranging individually-formed cylinders to create changing, interactive work.”

“Kindergarten students like the hands-on, three-dimensional qualities of clay,” Pfaff said.  “The cylinders will be assembled in the individual sculptures or combined in a collaborative manner to make one large armature by the whole class.”

Local artist/author Kathy Walden Kaplan will help guide the children through the process of creating the clay cylinders.  The children will use special tools to form the cylinders and to add texture and patterns to their art work.  Pfaff will fire the clay creations, and Kaplan will visit the classroom a second time to help the children glaze and color their sculptures. 

The students’ parents will be invited to participate in all aspects of the project, which is designed to enhance the Virginia art and kindergarten classroom Standards of Learning (SOL) requirements.  The finished sculpture will eventually be displayed in the foyer of the school’s new wing.