When it’s time to choose the next year’s art and science themes, I go through a series of steps and involve many people to develop the final list. First I make a chart with the themes we’ve taught the previous three or four years. We repeat some themes every other year, some every third year, and each year we develop brand new themes.
For art, we always have one theme that is focused on a specific geographic part of the world, such as Egyptian Art or African Art. We love to introduce campers to different cultures and the art that expresses so much about the cultures. We also like to have one theme that covers art of a specific movement, such as Modern Expressionism or art of the ‘60s. It is in those units that our campers meet famous artists such as Picasso, Warhol and Pollack. Our third art theme is usually a “wild card.” It can be anything that will bring fun and interesting art into the classroom. Some examples are Mythology and Medieval art.
When we choose new art themes, I ask our home office staff, camp staff and some of the curriculum writers to submit suggestions (find out about how our writers develop units in a future blog). I research the ideas keeping in mind that we will need to develop engaging projects each day of the week for each grade grouping (Nebulas, Stars, Supernovas). I choose what I think are the best three or four possible themes and then meet with a few of our home office staff to discuss the pros and cons of each. After much discussion and debate, we choose the themes we thing would provide an outstanding educational experience and be most interesting and appealing to our campers.
This post was written by our Curriculum Manager Joyce Friedrichs.
