The sounds of Guns n’ Roses’ saccharine classic 1980s rock anthem Sweet Child o’ Mine greeted students, staff, and guests of all stripes at Leo Nickerson Elementary yesterday morning. The big difference was that the lead string wasn’t an electric guitar; it was a ukulele.
Edmonton’s goofy ukulele cover band The Be Arthurs got all dressed up in their best school uniforms (black shorts and caps, white shirts, and yellow and black striped ties with matching socks) to herald in the second edition of the school’s Arts Day.
Held in conjunction with the start of the province’s third annual Alberta Arts Days, the day-long event gives the schoolchildren ample opportunity to combine entertainment and education.
Art teacher Andrea Daly has always encouraged a stronger focus on the arts throughout the school.
“Our school is a pretty big fine arts supporter. We do a lot of pretty neat things with art and music, drama and residencies.”
She said that the school’s fine arts committee wanted to improve upon their philosophy by giving the kids another way of thinking outside the box.
“We started thinking about what would be a little different that would appeal to kindergartens all the way to Grade sixes and really open up the children’s eyes to what art is.”
The festivities of the day got off to a rousing start during an assembly presentation when crowd favourites Maureen Rooney and Paul Punyi (returning from last year’s Arts Day) performed a short skit. They were followed by Zinour Falthoulin, who showed the gathering an example of Siberian drumming. An Inuit throat singer also impressed the crowd, followed by a live performance from Canadian Idol finalist Martin Kerr.
For the rest of the day, the kids were treated to a broad range of interactive workshops, ranging from ukuleles to drumming, improvisational theatre to interview history, and zumba to hip hop dance. An Arts Walk was also set up with local artists including painters, mural artists, and quilters.
St. Albert-based fractal snowflake creator Mary Spytz was one of those artists on hand with a display of her craft paper creations. She firmly believes that teaching children through creative play is a great way to make them lifelong lovers of learning.
“It’s about fun play but it’s serious play.”
She said she couldn’t resist coming back again after experiencing the school’s first Arts Day last year. The kids just make it all worthwhile, she says.
“Just to see them working their fine motor skills is really cool,” she said, referring to how she gets them involved in making their own delicate paper snowflakes. Daly added the intention is to not only keep up this momentum with future Arts Days but to also make them bigger and better over time.
