Kids show off art at Sage Point
Charles H. Featherstone/Columbia Basin Herald Megan Callaway hangs puzzle pieces colored by her daughters Mia and Cassidy at a Sage Point Elementary School student art show on Thursday.
Charles H. Featherstone/Columbia Basin Herald Fourth-grader Serena Murray talks art with Sage Point Elementary School principal Noreen Thomas during a student art exhibition Thursday.
MOSES LAKE — First-grader Ella Wiltbank was excited to talk about her picture until she noticed a reporter was taking notes.
Then she got quiet.
“It’s about my family and everyone is there and my dog and my cat and my guinea pig,” she said when asked what her picture contained.
But she wouldn’t answer any other questions.
Wiltbank’s picture was one of over 600 pictures from across the district on display in the gymnasium and common area of Sage Point Elementary School Thursday evening, part of an exhibit designed to show off the Moses Lake School District’s new art curriculum and the budding art skills of the city’s elementary school students.
“The art curriculum is new, and it really has the kids looking at how to be creative and how to draw from their own experiences and how to tie it to the content in their classroom that they learn about,” said outgoing superintendent Michelle Price.
Price wandered among the paintings, drawings, and sculptures on display, saying hello to parents and teachers. Kids wandered with their parents, showing them their pictures, eating cookies, or coloring puzzle pieces they would cut out and put on the wall.
Each grade focused on something different. Kindergarteners showed they had learned their primary colors, first-graders drew pictures of their families, and fourth-graders created landscapes.
According to Sage Point principal Noreen Thomas, the new curriculum helps the district meet state art education standards, and helps kids learn how to use different tools to express themselves.
“There are all kinds of the pastels, pencils, watercolors that the kids are learning how to use this year,” she said.
Some teachers “are artsy,” Tomas added, and some aren’t, so the new curriculum creates a “level playing field” for all children to experience and create art.
Fourth-grader Serena Murray stood evaluating her painting, a landscape she did with oil paints and pastels. While she was happy to describe it, she wasn’t sure what she thought about it.
“I blended it with a light pastel,” she said. “I enjoyed making it but I don’t know if I liked it.”
But her father Brian had a different opinion.
“I like it!” He said.