The Arts at MPFS

We just received another gift.

We are now up to $14,205 in donations towards #theARTSatMPFS.

Amazing!!!

Thank you to everyone who donated, shared, posted, and talked about this campaign to fund #theARTSatMPFS! We are humbled by your generosity and now have a clear goal to raise the rest of the funds needed at our Auction this Friday evening. 

It is the LAST DAY to help foster the creativity that is within the students at MPFS. Help them lead the 4th industrial revolution.

Itai Palti - Director of architecture and design at The Centric Lab states: As robots increasingly take on manual labor, we will need to foster what differentiates human from machine (at least for now): creativity. Evidence that psychological and physical well-being is paramount to creative thinking will turn the historic exchange of human health for economic growth on its head. As Klaus Schwab, founder of the World Economic Forum writes, “I am convinced of one thing—that in the future, talent, more than capital, will represent the critical factor of production.”

We are at $10,945! Help us get to $13,000 by the end of the day today by sharing the link with your friends. 

Thank you! We couldn't do this without you.

https://www.givecampus.com/sch...

WOW! We are at $10,250 donated to date which is 41% donated of $25,000 goal. There are 58 donors so far and only 6 days left in this campaign. Thank you all for your support! 

If you are an official ADVOCATE for this campaign - keep on pushing this out. It's because of your efforts and other who share this campaign on social media that we are seeing such success these last few days.

Opening the Window to Creativity at MPFS: Makerspace

We've already raised $6,861 toward our $25,000 goal! After the campaign, will continue to fund this initiative through a fun and lively paddle raise at our Spring Auction on Friday, April 21. 

To keep you informed, each week, we'll post a news installment addressing our mission and our wish list within one arts discipline or focus. You can find tips to help spread the word about this campaign on the Fund the Arts at MPFS page of the Support section of our website. Thank you in advance for your support and for encouraging others to Be-Friend us! 

The Makerspace is solely dedicated to encouraging students to innovate, problem-solve, and create. Here middle school students and 1st graders together decide to print a dragon (the school’s mascot) on the 3D printer.  In another corner of the Makerspace, a 3rd grader sits at a sewing machine making a cloth rocket ship while a few other students work together taking a part and learning about “the motherboard” of a computer with the help of their supervisor. While doing all of those things is part of everyday life at MPFS, this space is designed to give students the opportunity to be more open-ended with their creativity at their own pace and to have a wide variety of tools and materials at their disposal to inspire innovation. “The maker education approach to learning is highly individual yet lives within certain boundaries. It recognizes that no two students will learn the same concepts at the same rate. It even recognizes that some peripheral concepts may not be learned by all students. Yet students faced with a common challenge to design their own unique solutions will naturally come to some common understanding.” (Kurti, Kurti, & Fleming, 2014, para 4) 

The Makerspace, incorporated recently into the MPFS community, has been filled with supplies and tools donated by friends of the school and through grant funding. As this space continues to evolve we look for additional items that students and teachers alike can utilize. The following electronic kits will enable students at MPFS from Grades 3 through 8 to experience creativity and problem solving through electronic circuits and programming. The wish list below reflects that. 

• SparkFun Sensor Kit (5) 
• SparkFun Essential Sensor Kit (5) 
• SparkFun Inventor's Kit Parts Refill (6) 
• LilyPad Sewable Electronics Kit (5) 

we just received a $2000 match! This generous anonymous donor will match $1 for $1 up to $2000! Please help us get to $2000 raised today so we get the match by sharing this news with your friends on social media! 

Which of you found your voice through the arts?

This year's production of Aladdin was a colorful, funny, fast paced showcase of our young, talented middle school students. Last Night we saw them light up on stage and we can't wait for their final performance this evening at 7:00.

GREAT NEWS! We've just received a new challenge! Advocate, Cabrina Stanek, will give $100 if $100 is donated in the next 2 days. Thank you Cabrina!

Many of you will remember T. Stefanie, for those who do not, she is our music teacher at MPFS. T. Stefanie hosts her Spring and Winter concerts in our Meeting room. It is the largest space available with manageable acoustics. Since the room is not specifically designed for these types of performances she will mic the classes to augment the sound quality. Her wish list includes Speakers and a mixer that will allow T. Stefanie to maximize sound control during these wonderful concerts. 

She has also listed Classroom Listening Centers. These centers engage up to eight students in the same audio lesson at once per kit. “Hearing is the primary channel for learning. The more children hear, the better they learn." (Dr. Mark Ross, University of Connecticut) At MPFS we go a step further to focus on the importance of listening. With listening centers involving headphones and music, we can help students increase their listening comprehension level. Musical training helps develop language and reasoning, a mastery of memorization, pattern recognition and much more. This gives our students the extra edge, with improvements in focus, cognitive control, performance, literacy and learning.

Classroom Listening Centers (2)
Speakers (2)
Mixer
Microphone Cables (6)

What a wonderful out pouring of generosity! We have 28 donors and are now over $5000 in contributions towards #theArtsatMPFS. If you have signed up to ADVOCATE for this, keep sharing your posts! The more we reach out the more successful we will be!

Open the window to a child's creativity. Support #theArtsatMPFS
Help these students live a creative life by supporting #theArtsatMPFS
I’m supporting #theArtsatMPFS. Are you?
Help enrich children's learning and lives through your gift to fund #theArtsatMPFS
Expand a child's world view through your support of #theArtsatMPFS

T. Donna not only is our technology teacher she is also an artist. She 
received her post baccalaureate in Art Education from Moore College of Art and Design, got her M Ed in Elemntary Education at Lesley University and achieved a B.A. in Interdisciplinary Art with the University of Washington. That said she put a lot of thought into what she wanted to support #theArtsatMPFS. On her wishlist are Google Expedition Kits and Headsets.

MPFS students will be able to attend "field trips" to architectural wonders, experience a variety of art movements, and be inspired by larger than life experiences of master artist’s creations through these virtual reality tools. Expeditions are collections of virtual reality panoramas — 360° photo spheres and 3D images — annotated with details, points of interest and questions that make them easy to integrate into the MPFS curriculum. The goal is to expose students to places they wouldn’t be able to see otherwise and enhance our “classroom without walls” experience here at MPFS, igniting students’ sense of wonder by exploring the world together.

Teacher Karen (along with T. Stefanie and T. Donna) are excited to hear about the wonderful progress this campaign is making. Karen, our MPFS  art teacher, has been with the school for over 16 years. She has inspired many young artisans to dig deep, explore and find their passion for art. Each year you can see the fruits of her efforts in the collection of works proudly displayed at our annual Art Show. T. Karen is an asset to this Friends school and we are grateful to have her. Thank you for helping to enhance her program with your gift in support of #theArtsatMPFS.