Mrs. Nicole Newcomb
Valley View’s art teacher has been teaching Kindergarteners through Fourth graders for six years.
“You can do hard things!”
As with many of our teachers this year, Mrs. Newcomb was asked to fill a different role in addition to teaching art to five grade levels. She is tasked with supporting the Remote Learning Center and second and fourth grade lunches. Keeping children between five and ten years old focused on their Chromebook for virtual learning in a larger space is challenging at best…
Because Mrs. Newcomb is busy with students during the shortened school day, she is unable to teach in-person or live virtually. She relies on creating YouTube-style videos for each art project for each grade level. Each video is set to music and has captions added. The speed is adjusted to match the grade level. Mrs. Newcomb has watched students in the Remote Learning Center become captivated as they watch her videos. As challenging as it has been to update her teaching website to be more user-friendly and to create the art project videos, Mrs. Newcomb focused on the positive - she has developed a video library to use in the future
Some of her favorite projects include:
Eensy Weensy Spider, collab with Mrs. Brennan. Artist: Ryleigh Schlosser
Kindergarten: Mrs. Newcomb collaborated with Mrs. Brennan (Valley View and Woodglen’s music teacher) to create Eensy Weensy Spiders. These spider masterpieces climbed up the waterspout as the children sang (and to their delight!).
First: Students created a skin tone rainbow with a peace dove for Black History Month. Mrs. Newcomb added an extra twist: she changed elements and principles of design to statements of equality:
We See Color
We teach to Form a fair and just future
We step beyond the Line
We create a safe Space for every student
We learn to Shape new perspectives through arts education
We Value all students.
Memorial Park Virtual Fun Run (work in progress). Artist: Normajean DePalma
"All Are Welcome" (book by Alexandra Penfold) Equity Rainbow. Artist: Travis Foley
Second: Mr. DePalma, who volunteers for the Lebanon Township Memorial Park Committee, reached out to Mrs. Newcomb and asked if students would be interested in participating in a poster contest for a virtual fun run hosted by the Committee. Mrs. Newcomb enlisted her second graders and Mr. Maxwell’s (Woodglen’s art teacher) fifth graders to create the posters. Students learned to draw people playing on playground equipment and participating in wellness activities. Our community will select the winners (so, keep an eye out for the poster contest!).
Third: The third grade teachers collaborated with Mrs. Newcomb, asking for a project that supported their onomatopoeia unit. Students created 3D haunted houses with onomatopoeia words, such as boom, pow, bang, screech.
Fourth: Students learned about Pop Culture through a graphic design project. Mrs. Newcomb taught students how to use Google Drawing to create characters they are interested in (e.g., Baby Yoda, the Avengers, Pikachu). Mrs. Newcomb frequently created individualized videos and conducted one-on-one sessions to help students. Students were engaged and enthralled with the project.
Pop Art Graphic Design Project (work in progress). Artist: Aidan Burke
Onomatopoeia Haunted House collaboration with 3rd grade. Artist: Hayden Cole
Mrs. Newcomb readily admitted the fourth grade project was very ambitious and difficult (teaching students a new computer program by video!). She frequently tells her students “You can do hard things”.
Mrs. Newcomb is following her own word of encouragement and is doing hard things!