Buffalo Teachers – Integrate the Arts in your Classroom!

Young Audiences of Western New York (YA-WNY) and the Buffalo Teacher Resource Center (BTRC) are pleased to announce special funding for 2009-2010 Phonics Program: Alphabet Awareness and the Erie Canal Residency.  For the past seven years YA-WNY and the BTRC have collaborated to offer inclusive art residency opportunities for teachers and students in the Buffalo Public School District.  These residencies have no cost to the individual schools, and support New York State learning standards.  Once again, this partnership will support programming in 15 schools for the Erie Canal Residency and in 12 schools for the Phonics Program.

Enhance learning in an arts rich classroom environment.

Buffalo teachers - apply today to bring these programs to your school for the 2009-2010 school year.

Applications are available from your school’s Teacher Center liaison or by clicking on the links below.

APPLICATION DEADLINE – Thursday, October 15th, 2009 at 3:00 pm

The Phonics Program: Alphabet Awareness is an innovative approach to reading readiness for kindergarten and 1st grade students.  Developed by Western New York composer, musician, and educator Jerry Raven, dancer and educator, Cindy Hanna, and early childhood art specialist Marna Burstein, this residency offers a multi-sensory, multi-disciplinary approach to teaching and reinforcing listening and sound recognition skills and metalinguistic awareness to young children. Using songs, dances, signing and visual arts, each consonant is attached to a variety of activities which establish and reinforce the connection of the letter to its corresponding sounds. By acknowledging that all students do not learn in the same way, or at the same rate, The Phonics Program addresses the needs of those students who struggle with the traditional approach to reading.

Apply to bring The Phonics Program to your school by clicking here.

PhonicsApplicationDOC

PhonicsApplicationPDF

The Erie Canal Residency program is designed for 4th and 7th grade Social Studies students and teachers.  It involves administrators, educators, students, and parents in a creative collaboration to strengthen the school community.  This program supports high student achievement through a variety of art forms – music, theater, museum artifacts and literary arts.

This residency invites students to take a personal journey down the Erie Canal by speaking through the voices of the era.  An experienced teaching poet or writer leads literary exercises involving vintage maps, photographs, drawings, and imaginative prompts. Students learn to write in character, helping them develop a sense of narrative and delve more deeply into the details of daily life in a small town from the past. Performances by Gretchen Murray Sepik as the surly packet-boat cook “Erie Canal Sal” and the musical group The Stringmen's Erie Canal Show give students a taste of the unique characters and songs from the period, while the Erie Canal Traveling Museum puts artifacts of the era in students' hands.

Apply to bring The Erie Canal Residency to your school.

ErieCanalApplicationWordDOC

ErieCanalApplicationPDF

Preview the Erie Canal Residency at the Albright Knox Art GalleryGusto at the Gallery on October 9 from 4:30-8:30 pm.  YA-WNY partners with the gallery to present the artists of the Erie Canal Residency.  Read more about October 9, here.