Thank you to the entire Waters Fine Arts Community for coming out to our 2023 Lunar New Year Lantern Parade! Thank you ALL for supporting this beloved tradition:).

And our 1001 Cranes for Lunar New Year is already at its 500+ mark! Please pick up origami paper in the art lab to practice our fourth ancient art of China!

Check out some of our lunar good luck kinetic and choice-based OOAK constructions---wow, wow, wow!

Good Afternoon Everyone!

We will begin our exploration of Chicago's New Century of Progress with an in-depth look at what creates community past and present throughout our city. In February, we will focus on five black female icons of Chicago's early Bronzeville community. We will look at how these women shaped much of Chicago's fame as Black Metropolis for many years.

PreK-8 students will begin with Gwendolyn Brooks' Streets of Bronzeville, using an illustrated version by Faith Ringgold to guide their experience. Each student will create their own comparative community poem for our Chicago Sidewalks broadside poetry project.

We will begin learning the HISTORICITY of our city utilizing Learning in Places frameworks and a variety of images, texts and timelines--- different perspectives---on these important Chicago stories, we will create community monuments and public artworks to honor our city's past and future. Our investigations will be looking closely at our city's important place in civil rights history throughout the last century. These foundational studies will launch our mapping and urban architecture project throughout the spring.

In addition to Ms. Brooks, our featured Bronzeville community artists, innovators, activists and cultural icons are Dr. Margaret T. Burroughs, Mahalia Jackson, Jackie Ormes and Ida B. Wells. Many thanks to Kristin Hanson for her help with this project:)!

With Kindness,

Mrs. Vecchioni

Thanks to All! Our first SY23 S.O.S. Sale was a great success! We raised $183 to help SAVE OUR SEAS!!!

This year we plan to focus our good work locally---removing plastics and trash from our neighborhood, our river and our GREAT lakes---:)!

(Last year, our S.O.S. sales raised $1,500 to help clean-up ocean plastic globally! WOW!)

OUR NEXT S.O.S. SALE WILL BE FEBRUARY 23, 2023!

https://greatlakes.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/AGL_PlasticsToolkit_Report_FINAL2.pdf

GET INVOLVED LOCALLY---NOW:))! Ms. Rovito and I would like to invite all 5th-8th grade students to the Chicago River Student Congress! It will be held on Saturday, February 25 from 8:45-1:00 at DePaul College Prep.

If your child is interested in attending, please fill out this form.

THANK YOU EVERYONE!

Dr. Burroughs was a long-ago influencer in her Southside neighborhood for many years---working tirelessly to help form a cutting-edge community that named itself Bronzeville---as a celebration and tribute to the bronze and brown skin of its community members. Her work creating pride-of-place networks and local activism is still an inspiration to community organizers statewide, nationally and globally.

For 93 years, Dr. Burroughs was an artist, art teacher, community activist, volunteer and the co-founder of the DuSable Black History Museum and Education Center, in her living room (see image above). Her presence is still felt today, as her work lives on.

We will be learning about Dr. Burroughs and the impact of self-identity and pride-of-place activism throughout our Chicago community project.

First nationally featured black female cartoonist and doll designer in the United States. Ms. Ormes worked with the Chicago Defender, and her comics talked about then-current issues of racism and women's rights throughout its syndication.

Journalist, community organizer, social justice activist and civil rights leader in Chicago and throughout her lifetime.

Gospel singer and civil rights activist. Ms. Jackson was a key Chicago member of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.

In 1955, Gwendolyn Brooks was the first black Pulitzer Prize winner for her book of poems entitled, Annie Allen. In 1968, Gwendolyn Brooks was named the Poet Laureate of Illinois. Ms. Brooks' honors just go on and on:). We will be learning much more about her storied life in the upcoming weeks in the art lab. She was an artist that never stopped...:))!

She was also an avid supporter of young poets in Chicago throughout her lifetime and was good friends with our first black mayor, Harold Washington. Together, they fought for equity and equality in Chicago for all people. The Harold Washington Library honors Ms. Brooks each year...

Our FIRST Chicago Sidewalks Connection!

LAST YEAR...Abbie Lazzara won the Gwendolyn Brooks Poetry Award from the Harold Washington Library Haiku Festival contest. Her winning poem was written on her good luck koi fish puppet at 2022's Lunar New Year Parade:).

Abbie's 2022 Gwendolyn Brooks Poetry Award winning poem is featured here:

the terracotta

standing, guarding the old king

fighting off bad luck

• What did the circle say to the triangle on Valentine’s Day?
• I think you’re acute...:))

Email: alvecchioni@cps.edu
Website: https://sites.google.com/d/1gOUlvaGSjnayJ61cdOPaXypKNpvOdGJV/p/14ySrnWMMiGx6GPdqlhp3WTS91W4QRW9J/edit
Location: 4540 North Campbell Avenue, Chicago, IL, USA
Phone: 7735345090