SmartARTS

10/02/2026

🎥 A SmartARTS residency through the students’ eyes!

Middle school students at Rudolph Gordon School created this fantastic news show recap highlighting their weeklong SmartARTS residency in Ms. White’s class with guest Teaching Artist RaAmen Stallings.

Throughout the week, students explored the relationship between objective journalism and yellow journalism while developing their own skills as photographers and writers. Their work will come together in finalized newspapers featuring the photographs and articles they created throughout the residency.

We love this student-created look inside a week of learning, creativity, and arts integration—and we can’t wait to see their finished newspapers! 📰📸

Metropolitan Arts Council, MAC Rudolph G. Gordon School

09/23/2026

🍎 Counting was happening in ALL the ways at Duncan Chapel Elementary! 🍎

We had such a fun morning last week visiting Ms. Surin’s K4 class and SmartARTS Teaching Artist Kelly Davis as these young learners got moving, acting, and counting their way through Ten Apples Up On Top! 📚

Students became the characters in the story—lions, dogs, and tigers—while Ms. Surin took her role as the bear very seriously! 🐻 There was plenty of laughter as students acted out the story and practiced counting in so many different ways: seeing numbers on the page, hearing them spoken aloud, showing numbers with their fingers, and using movement to bring those numbers to life.

And, of course, they had to try putting 10 apples up on top! 🍎 Each student had a special headband that let them stack apples one by one, counting as they went.

This is what arts integration can look like in K4: learning that is active, playful, memorable, and built around the way our youngest students naturally explore their world. And judging by Teaching Artist Kelly Davis’s many expressions in these photos, she was having just as much fun as the students! ❤️

What a great day of learning, moving, and COUNTING with SmartARTS!

Duncan Chapel Elementary Metropolitan Arts Council, MAC

09/17/2026

What does a feeling look like when it comes off the page? 🎨📚

During today’s visit to Stone Academy, 3rd graders were exploring that question as part of their SmartARTS residency with Teaching Artist Jimmie Lynn D***s.

Using The Invisible Boy and Enemy Pie, students took the characters’ feelings and translated them into color, line, shape, movement, and 3D form. Their sculptures became visual metaphors for how characters feel and grow throughout a story.

It was fantastic hearing students explain the choices behind their work—every color, curve, angle, and form had meaning. With Jimmie Lynn guiding their exploration of modeling and abstract expression, students were connecting literacy, visual art, design, and creative thinking in powerful ways.

And the residency isn’t finished yet! After three days of creating with 3rd grade, Jimmie Lynn will continue the SmartARTS experience with Stone Academy’s 4th graders next.

Arts integration gives students more than another way to create—it gives them another way to think, understand, and express what they know. 💡

08/15/2026

08/13/2026

08/05/2026

Excited for the upcoming school year!

🎨🌟 Lake Forest Elementary is proud to be recognized as a 2026–2027 SmartArts Partner School! 🌟🎨

This designation reflects our commitment to providing engaging arts experiences that inspire creativity, foster student growth, and support learning across all areas. We are excited to continue educating, inspiring, and empowering our students through the arts! 💙🐆💛

07/22/2026

07/17/2026

03/31/2026

The process is just as—if not more—important than the final product. Teachers and our artists pour so much into our students, supporting them as they explore, take risks, and bring their ideas to life.

This is just a tiny glimpse of the work being done as a multi-part project at Greenville Middle Academy—and you can already see the momentum building. Stay tuned for the final reveal. 🎨