Getting Your Artistic On During the Summer

New art teacher at Overlake, Dana Len, and veteran Overlake art teacher, Sarah Fitzpatrick, have teamed up to offer interesting new artistic camps this summer. Arts! Imagination Collaboration is one such example. Here campers will be able to combine the worlds of drama and visual arts, creating characters and scenes through hands-on activities. The students will build sets and props for the stage.

“I feel visual art seamlessly fits with all subjects we teach,” explains Len. “The shorter sessions and experimental nature of the summer camps make it easier for team teaching to occur. I hope that the work we do to develop the camps, and the learning that will result from teaching the camps, will fuel broader discussions about integrated teaching and learning at Overlake.”

The camps that Len and Fitzpatrick co-teach are available to middle school students as well as students entering third or fourth grade next school year- something new for Overlake’s summer program. “It’s great to have the opportunity to teach a variety of classes and especially ones that may not be possible during the school year,” says Len. “I imagine it will be a welcome break for students and it is certainly a chance for me to learn new content. I am especially excited about the class I get to teach with the amazing, Sarah Fitz!”

Len will be teaching three other camps this summer for incoming middle school students; 2-Point Perspective: The Magic of Drawing, Experimental Art, and Art on the Move: Visual Arts in the Great Outdoors. For a listing of all the Middle School camp offering, click here.

You might wonder why some of Overlake’s teachers spend their summer vacation back at school. For Len it’s fun. “This type of work is exciting to me, even if it means giving up part of my summer. Beyond it being just teaching a week-long camp, the program has provided strong coaching for the faculty and has really provided a sort of “test kitchen” for us to create and design meaningful curriculum that will extend into all the classes we teach,” explains Len.

To explore Overlake’s Summer Program and learn more about what summer is like on the campus, click here.