The River of Life at Petite Riviere Elementary School

with Ronnie Scullion, Visual Artist & Joanne Jefferson, Literary Artist

Press Release June 4, 2003
Petite Riviere Elementary School

The Petite River runs directly behind the Petite Riviere Elementary School. The River of Life project began in the winter.	The project continued through the spring. Seen here are Grades Primary and 1 students sketching outdoors.

Using the river as a focus, students in grades Primary through to Six at Petite Riviere Elementary School recently completed a school wide Arts Smarts Nova Scotia program - "The River of Life" - in which they explored themes of growth and change. They looked at life along the river through art and storytelling, creating clay models, which served as a backdrop for story telling and animation.

"The Arts Smarts program flourished at Petite Riviere Elementary School under the professional guidance of Ms. Ronnie Scullion, visual artist, and Ms. Joanne Jefferson, poet," commented school principal Alan Turner. "Staff were impressed with the quality of work the students created, some of which was used to create animated short stories using Power Point presentations. A celebration of students' work was held on Thursday, May 15th at Petite Riviere School.  The evening was enjoyed by all."

First days were spent brainstorming the meaning of words "water" and "river". Accompanying art activities had students working with "water" as seen here spinning water and paints (in a salad spinner) to create colourful pictures with water patterns.	Primary and Grade 1 students are reproducing animal tracks on boards covered with modeling clay.

Arts Smarts is a national program, funded by the J. W. McConnell Family Foundation. The Foundation developed the program so that artists, in collaboration with teachers, might bring new ways of learning to children in schools, integrating art into the curriculum. The program is administered provincially by the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia and NSCAD University.

Working closely with classroom teachers, the ArtsSmarts artists introduced students to ways of interpreting and evaluating their environment through art and poetry. The Petite Riviere school and parent community has for many years instilled in the students an appreciation of their surroundings.

Grades 4, 5 and 6 worked individually or in small groups to create riverside models in clay. The clay models became the characters and stage sets for an animated presentation.	The models were photographed, the characters manipulated to different positions, and the resulting images edited. Rudimentary animations were created using sequences of images. Text and in some instances, sound, was added.

Tapping into this awareness and love of the outdoors, Ms. Scullion guided the students through the production of paintings, pastel and charcoal drawings, clay models and computer-animated stories. "We began with an exploration of 'water' - its meaning," explained Ronnie, "then used water in the making of art - creating bubble prints and watercolour paintings. This in turn lead to making clay models of the riverside, culminating in the production of animated short stories."

A diver with gear swims amongst the fish and dolphins in "Underwater Adventure" created by a group of Grade 4 and 5 students. Click on image to view animated slideshow.	"A Day at the Pool" is the creation of a group of Grade 5 and 6 students.

Rivers of words were the focus of Ms. Jefferson's sessions with the students. They created Haiku poetry, wrote imaginative letters and stories and explored map making.

Both artists were impressed with exceptional creativity and talent at the school and commented on the high degree of collaboration among students and the dedication and support of teachers - "an awesome experience!"

Riverside scenes created by Grades 2 & 3 (above) and Grade 5 (on right).