Kell High School visual art students were again asked to create artwork for this year’s Atlanta Sports Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony. The artwork, made by six of Kell’s AP Drawing students, honors each of this year’s selected inductees, Leeman Bennett, Dale Ellis, Al Mead, George Morris, Charlie Yates, and Star of the Year Award winner, Chase Elliott. Under the direction of art teacher, Laura LaQuaglia, students researched the inductees and created an artwork celebrating the athletic achievements and contributions of each individual. The drawings and paintings made by, Michala Settle, Ferris Halemeh, Rachel Cheek, Avery Silva, Kennedy O’Connor, and Antonio Nichols, will be formally displayed at the Atlanta Sports Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony to be held at the Buckhead Theatre on February 6^th.

For event tickets and information, visit www.atlantasportshalloffame.org

You’ll want to stay right until the end of the movie Selma in support of student artists at Kennesaw Mountain High School. Under the direction of teacher Lauren Davis, students contributed poster art for the moving film about Dr. King and the march for civil rights from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama.

 The art is done in the style of young children for a Sunday School classroom scene, and there are also pieces of art that represent signs marchers carried in the real-life event. The pieces were created last year in preparation for the filming by 6 art students and 2 drama students, most of whom have graduated. Still on campus at KMHS to share in the limelight of the film’s success are students Melissa Cosler, Conor Hagan, Trishna Patel, Victoria Shoup and Erin Willis.

 Art teacher Lauren Davis found a way for all students to show pride in the accomplishment – she located the credit on the Catalog of Feature Films website, showing the full credits at the end of the movie (www.afi.com/members/catalog/selma.aspx).  The printed page has the credit for KMHS highlighted and on display at KMHS.

 Congratulations KMHS Mustang Superstars!

On January 27th,  the East Cobb County Council of PTAs (ECCC PTA), parents and teachers celebrated the artistic talent of 150 East Cobb students at the ECCC PTA Reflections Ceremony at the Lassiter High School theater.

 The ECCC PTA received nearly 500 entries across six artistic contest categories from twenty-nine East Cobb public schools — an impressive level of participation.Winning entries from the ECCC moved on to the Georgia PTA level of competition and will be judged against other artwork from around the state.

 The Reflections Arts Recognition Program is the PTA’s national arts recognition and achievement program for students.  Since 1969, over 10 million students across the nation have taken part in this popular PTA program.  The Reflections Art Contest begins with art contests at local schools, and the winners of those contests proceed to the ECCC PTA Reflections art contest.  This year’s competition theme was “the world would be a better place if ….“

 The ECCC PTA is made up of 35 local unit PTAs within East Cobb.  These PTAs serve schools at elementary, middle and high school levels — including  Pope, Wheeler, Walton, Sprayberry, Lassiter and Kell, and many of the elementary and middle schools that feed into those high schools. Altogether, the ECCC PTA is made up over 28,000 PTA parents, students, teachers, administrators and community members.   

 The ECCC PTA is proud to hold the Reflections Art Contest each year, because it provides an excellent opportunity for students of all ages to:

• Unleash their creative talents and be inspired,
• Express themselves imaginatively in their artwork,
• Experience the joy and fun of making art,
• Tap into critical thinking skills to create art inspired by the annual theme,
• Receive positive recognition for their original works of art.

The Reflections Program not only offers a unique and personal opportunity for students to develop artistic talent, but also shares the importance of art in education with our school communities.

The Kindergarten classes at Still Elementary brought reading to life at their Fairy Tale Ball. Everyone on the grade level – from staff to students – dressed up for the special occasion in their book-inspired “beautiful and handsome ball attire.”  The event capped off an informative and exciting instructional unit about fairy tales for the students. They enjoyed reading fairy tales during a special story time, tried out their best waltzes with a little ballroom dancing, and even had a fancy snack. Students were thrilled when two popular characters from the movie Frozen appeared, too – Elsa and Anna -  to take character photos with the students. Still Elementary: where dreams about being successful readers really do come true!

Hollydale Elementary celebrated 100 days of school with the Osborne High School Cheerleaders and Drum line!

Students were awarded medals for reaching milestones for reading and math.

The Osborne mascot also made an appearance. It was a fun day of celebration for students K – 5 at Hollydale Elementary!

Russell Elementary’s Second annual “Canstruction” was a huge success!  Canstruction is a school-wide canned food drive challenge. Teams designed and built objects using the cans they collected.  Each class was expected to use the engineering design process to construct their design.

Russell had 14 teams who participated in the 2014 challenge. The winner in the primary grades was Ms. Lauderdale’s team who made a castle.  The intermediate level winners were Ms. Steiner and Ms. Winsett’s team who made a penguin iceberg sculpture.  The construction competition allowed students the opportunity to build, create, and donate.  Russell Elementary donated 990 cans to the Atlanta Food Bank, and the winning teams took the donation to Turner Field.

Harrison High School’s fine arts department put on a Winter Extravaganza Concert and Art Show at the J. Alton Keith Theatre at McEachern High School on December 2, 2014.  It was a collaboration between the band, orchestra, chorus, theatre, and visual arts students and teachers.  It was a wonderful evening all around and, hopefully, the beginning of an annual event.

Eight student artists from Cobb County were recognized as winners in the WaterSmart Art Competition. This competition, sponsored by the Cobb and Paulding Water Authority, encourages middle school students in Cobb and Paulding counties to research why water is important and how they can be responsible citizens who support water conservation. These eight students have their artwork published in this year’s calendar and will be water ambassadors helping to educate their families, friends and peers. This year’s contest had the most participation ever from middle schools with hundreds of entries from our Cobb visual arts programs.

Kacie Kamins Mummert, art teacher at Mabry Middle School in Cobb County, received the Georgia Art Education Association’s Middle Level Art Educator of the Year Award for 2015. She received her award at this year’s Fall conference in Macon. Kacie is a dynamic teacher who has worked to build an exceptional art program at her school. She also has helped to organize major art events in the county and has established collaborative partnerships with the High and Zuckerman Museums.