Bacich Elementary Art Blog

On December 3rd, 2020, Bacich School celebrated the conclusion of our unit titled: "My Skin: Evolving Identity " in a first ever school wide webinar. Visual arts is a wonderful, organic way to engage our students in conversation about skin colors, self love, respect for others, race and diversity.  The overarching visual arts component integrated literature with the book by author Michael Tyler and illustrator David Lee Csickso "The Skin you Live In." This unit was implemented in all grade levels K-4th grade. Moreover, the art component was inspired by photographer Angelica Dass and her stunning skin color study titled Humanæ.   Like Angelica Dass, students engaged in a self-study about their skin color and the skin of their peers, family and community. Students created a self-portrait featuring their skin colors and wrote creative, descriptive names for their skin color. The K-4th grade artwork is featured in our school wide virtual art gallery. The highlight of t...

  Kindergarten  With the help of family members Kindergarten students submitted their skin color study self-portraits to be displayed in our school-wide “Our Skin” virtual exhibition schedule for December 2020. Kindergarten students also had the opportunity to engage in a variety of arts integration activities. Such as building paper sculptures, and creating whimsical, shape scarecrows silhouettes. Arts integration is an approach to teaching that integrates the fine and performing arts as primary pathways to learning. Arts integration differs from traditional education by its inclusion of both the arts discipline and core subjects as part of learning.  The goal of arts integration is to increase knowledge of a core subject area while concurrently fostering a greater understanding and appreciation of visual arts. Arts integration is an approach to teaching in which students construct and demonstrate understanding through an art form. Students engage in a creative process ...

Kentfield School District  Better Together/Racial Justice T-Shirt Artwork & Instruction Videos “We all should know that diversity makes for a rich tapestry, and we must understand that all the threads of this tapestry are equal in value no matter their color.”  - Maya Angelou Many artists create work that intersects with political activism and social justice causes. Throughout history, art has been used as an accessible tool for communication, raising awareness about social issues and affecting positive change.  My personal artwork is a natural way of expressing my ideas about how I see the world, through shapes, lines, textures and colors. Exploring social justice subjects in my personal artwork is a new and scary territory. I have immersed myself in reading about social justice, have joined a book club formed by colleagues and I have been serving on the Marin County Social Justice Curriculum Writing Group. This work has truly been eye opening for me. While self-ref...