Hey guys! The Hillbrook Art Show 2018 is about to wrap up. It's been quite the artistic year over here and I wanted to share with you some personal experiences with 6th grade Sound Art.
As I mentioned in a previous post or two, I have been teaching a new 6th grade art class focusing on SOUND. It's been a very fun and eye-opening experience for both the students and myself (being my first time teaching a class of my own outside of percussion ensemble) as a new medium for self expression and storytelling.
We created several small projects over the course of the class (I had 4 groups of 6th-grade students that rotated between 4 art classes throughout the year):
- Sound Reflections (Listening for five minutes to a sound artifact and either writing or drawing their interpretation/story based on their connection with it.)
- Soundscapes with LoopyHD (Students made observations in the form of writing and audio recording of sounds that encompass the area around them. They then recreated the sounds they previously heard by recording new sounds in the LoopyHD app.)
- Short Videos with Foley Sound Effects (Students got to meet and see a cool demo by a working Foley professional! They also created their own 30-45 second video clips (or grabbed a licensed one from Vimeo) and recorded all of the sounds themselves!
- AudioBiography Final Projects (Based on a chosen personal "theme," students composed their own audio (including Foley sound effects) to help embody that theme or idea. A visual element was required in addition to sound. Students used GarageBand, LoopyHD and iMaschine as primary audio creation tools and chose between iMove, Padlet, Thinglink or Scratch + MakeyMakey for their final presentation medium. Check out all of the awesome student projects below (be ready for some interesting variety):
Quarter 1: bit.ly/2ILnZRQ
Quarter 2: bit.ly/2rHMOoe
Quarter 3: bit.ly/2IlMguk
Quarter 4: bit.ly/2II2CB8
For the Art Show this year, I made sure to take 360-degree images of each class. Then, I uploaded either links to or the actual project to a hot spot under their picture. I setup two iMacs at a table with links to the AudioBiographies (and other projects) already open in several tabs (on Thinglink). I also laid out several pairs of headphones with headphone splitters so visitors could listen simultaneously (great way to connect with others in an abstract way!).
All in all, this has been a fun and challenging year of stretching and discovering what students can create with sound. Can't wait to teach this again next year!
#fyi I am always available for more information about any of the above-mentioned projects or any other thoughts or questions you may have.
