Los Feliz Arts

This executive summary of the School Accountability Report Card (SARC) is intended to provide parents and community members with a quick snapshot of school accountability. The data presented in this report are reported for the 2008-09 school year, except the School Finances and School Completion data that are reported for the 2007-08 school year. For additional information about the school, parents and community members should review the entire SARC or contact the school principal or the district office.

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Project-based learning is a comprehensive instructional approach to engage students in sustained, cooperative investigation (Bransford & Stein, 1993).

Within its framework students collaborate, working together to make sense of what is going on. Project-based instruction differs from inquiry-based activity — activity most of us have experienced during our own schooling by its emphasis on cooperative learning. Inquiry is traditionally thought of as an individually done, somewhat isolated activity. Additionally, project-based instruction differs from traditional inquiry by its emphasis on students’ own artifact construction to represent what is being learned.
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article and photos by Lillie Pardo

For the second part of the project-based social studies unit on how families show care, the Kindergarteners in Ms. Pardo’s class studied “food.” Throughout the study of food, lesson plans, or “learning events,” incorporated art, drama, reading, writing, math, science, and of course, social studies. Students learned about food in context of my family’s foods, special family foods, the origin of foods, nutrition and traditional Eskimo foods. This article will describe three different learning events that took place during the two months the class studied food. more…

An Integrated Approach to Project-Based Learning

by Tawny Dovico and Renee Marcy | photos by Tawny Dovico

Throw the lever! Flip the switch! Spin the bobbin! Drop the hitch! Blast four weeks into the past. When the frothy smoke dissipates and the magic time travel dust settles you’ll find yourself in the second-grade classrooms among young mathematicians working in small groups of four. The young thinkers are hovering over elaborate oil paintings by Beth Peck from The House on Maple Street. Having learned that artists, like storytellers, use varied modes to share stories, such as picture, symbol, line, and color, the students attempted to interpret the paintings and sequence them from past to present. “Why is there a horse-drawn carriage and a car in this picture?” one curious mind puzzles. Such was the buzz and hum as students collaboratively problem-solved and negotiated their various notions of “time.” In the background, suspended at eye-level, was a newly hung, and still bare, timeline for future discovery. more…

text and photos by Lillie Pardo

The kindergarten school year began with learning about “caring,” which led to learning about “shelter” in early October. The guiding question for the whole unit was “How do family members show they care for each other?” To make a bridge from caring to shelter, each student made a sock puppet pal and gave it a name and a personality. Next, students thought about what their puppet pal would need to be cared for properly. When asked, “Where could it rest or eat?” some of the children answered, “It needs a home.” more…

by Alyssa Gonzales

What exactly is a neighborhood? If you had asked a first grade student this question in early September, it would have sparked a variety of personal responses. So how do we as educators take all of these wonderful ideas and honor our students’ individual input while validating their unique experiences? We ask more questions, of course!

The topic of neighborhoods lends itself perfectly to many opportunities in which students can gather data, explore their surroundings, and learn about their community. “Neighborhoods” is the overarching theme for the first grade project-based curriculum, Different Ways of Knowing.

Over the course of several weeks, students collected information to construct meaning to the question: What do we already know about neighborhoods? Children “zoomed” in on the sights and sounds of the neighborhoods around them through pantomime, paintings, and play.

Students took a walk through their neighborhood using their imagination. They pretended to hold a small video camera and recorded what they saw, smelled, heard, and felt. Using their senses as tools, the children were asked to share their images by pressing pause on their “recorders.” With the images fresh in their minds, students were asked questions like: What sounds do you hear? Are there birds or animals nearby? If so, what are they doing?

To compare and contrast differences and similarities among neighborhoods, students examined four art prints: Marc Chagall’s The Street, Philip Evergood’s Sunny Side of the Street, Winslow Homer’s Snap the Whip, and Anne Belle Lee Washington’s Sunday. Teachers then asked the essential questions: What shapes do you see in the painting? What time of day do you think it is? In what ways does this painting remind you of our school neighborhood? All of this inquiry gently guided the children closer to their goal of defining neighborhood.

As another part of the “neighborhood” study, all four first grade classes took a walking field trip in the school neighborhood in late October. It was a perfect opportunity to explore our community and learn more about what a neighborhood is.

First grade teacher Leeza Hamberger was asked to articulate what students gained through this inquiry-based approach. She explained, “Essentially, students gained a deeper concept of neighborhoods and relationships within their neighborhood community. Asking wonderful questions helps along a path of research. Organizing information helps students use this information to show what they’ve come to know…” All of these learning events help to develop critical thinking skills that are important not only in higher education, but also in life.

By narrowing their focus, students came up with a class definition of a neighborhood to create a common language for further inquiry. As a culminating activity, each of the four first grade classes showed what they came to know through artistic expression. Students collaborated and worked together (another essential skill for project-based learners) to create a large three-by-six-foot paper classroom neighborhood collage.

While students worked together to cut and paste the construction paper cutouts, each class had its own buzz in the air, its own uniqueness and energy—much like four mini-neighborhoods. When first grade student Ilsa was asked why she enjoyed learning about neighborhoods, her response was, “I like to learn about nature, living, and about people.”

By: Bebe Johnson

“Vogueing” like pros, they strutted the makeshift catwalk at LFCSA by twos and threes, pausing—with a bit of attitude—at the front of the stage to show off the t-shirts they had individually created the week before.

An invasion of supermodels? No, it was the culmination of Ms. Hamberger’s first grade class unit on clothes, and a great illustration of LFCSA’s project based curriculum in action.

“The whole thing began when we were studying about clothes,” Ms. Hamberger recalls. “Since the overall theme for the school this year is caring, we explored the different ways that clothing can show that we care.” Quizzing the children on the ways that clothing can show concern for others sparked an expanding notion of the roles clothing plays in the world.

As part of the goal of making each child an “expert,” “they all had to do research at home on questions they generated themselves,” Ms. H—as she is affectionately known—explains. “We are always trying to work with their critical thinking skills. We use a technique we call KWL—what do you know, what do you want to learn, and what did you learn.” As part of that process, each child did a survey of family members’ clothing choices and preferences; they also worked in teams to show how different fabrics might drape based on construction and fiber content and evaluated appropriateness of various garments for different activities. They even grasped the concept of supply and demand by setting up a mock clothing store where they made and sold paper “clothing,” using a pre-established spending budget for their wardrobes.

To learn about fabric textures and construction, the children wove paper textiles from construction paper. For garment making, they read books on pattern making and practiced sewing with string, all of which helped invest them in the learning process. Ms. H observes, “They’re so much more connected to the learning this way. Also, by having to work together, they’re experiencing real life situations, where you have to solve problems in a group.”

For many of the children, getting to apply their expertise on their own t-shirts was the highlight. With guidance from Ms. H and a handful of helpful parent volunteers, the children executed their creations to their own exacting specifications. “For some of the kids who seemed a bit stuck, I explained that they could filter their designs through their own interests.” Philip and Nikolai tapped into their love of Star Wars, creating starbursts from silver sequins and star fighters from shimmering textile paints. Colette, a budding marine biologist, created ocean layers with rolling waves, fish and mermaids. “They really had to think the design through,” says Ms. H, “and learn how to compromise what they wanted with what they could actually achieve.”

The fashion show seemed like a natural way to tie up the project. Naming the show “The Boys’ and Girls’ Spring Collection,” they practiced their fashion forward moves—choreographed by Ms. H—to hip techno music. A rapt audience of kindergartners, first graders and staff, and videography and popping flashbulbs from visiting parental paparazzi heightened the excitement of LFCSA’s first fashion event.

“When the show started, they really pulled it off,” their proud teacher beams. The students were proud, too. As Zahara pronounced after the dust had settled, “Ms. H, you’re just like Tyra Banks in America’s Next Top Model!”

By: Tawny Dovico

Early February brought with it bubbling excitement for Valentine’s Day. The notion of making letters and cards, sending them, and also receiving them in a reciprocal gesture of friendship and fun, inevitably fostered fertile ground for our organic discovery of the postal system. more…

This executive summary of the School Accountability Report Card (SARC) is intended to provide parents and community members with a quick snapshot of school accountability. The data presented in this report are reported for the 2007-08 school year, except the School Finances and School Completion data that are reported for the 2006-07 school year. For additional information about the school, parents and community members should review the entire SARC or contact the school principal or the district office.

View the report (PDF)