NMS Opens Its Doors For This Year’s Celebration Of The Arts

By Eliza Hallabeck

The hallways were lined with artwork and busy students displaying their talents when the doors of Newtown Middle School were opened for this year’s Celebration of The Arts, held Wednesday, April 29.

Different booths were set up around the school in classrooms and in the lobby to demonstrate to parents and visitors what students have been working on over the school year.

“They’re a really wonderful directed group,” said NMS art teacher Claudia Mitchell about the Newtown Middle School seventh grade Art Enrichment students as she pointed out studies of fish the students had completed to work toward a Henri Matisse-inspired painting.

Ms Mitchell also pointed out the eighth grade Art Enrichment students’ studies of Renaissance fashion in the main lobby.

A table was set up in the lobby for visitors to purchase a copy of this year’s Literary Magazine, a compilation of written work and art work from students at the school. Copies of the book, sold for $7 each, can also be purchased by emailing art teacher Arlene Spoonfeather at spoonfeathera@newtown.k12.ct.us.

The Newtown Middle School Interact Club also had a table set up in the lobby, where members and the club’s advisor, Bruce Moulthrop, sold baked goods to raise money to help fight childhood hunger.

Art enrichment students set up tables to paint in the hallways, and one student, eighth grader David Swigart, painted a mural of a dragon on one of the walls at the school.

“I started painting today, at the beginning of the Celebration of The Arts,” David said, and added that he has drawn dragons a lot in the past. 

In the school library, students in the GATES program demonstrated projects they had created, and in the technology education class room projects created by students were set up to introduce visitors to what students in tech ed learn and do.

“The younger siblings, they come into the tech ed room,” said tech ed teacher Don Ramsey, “and they see all the things, and they really see that the middle school is something to look forward to.”

Mexican wedding cakes and empanadas made by students in the GR8 Chiefs Cooking Club, sponsored by the Newtown Prevention Council, waited with students outside of the school’s food lab of the Family and Computer Science Department to give visitors a taste of a “fiesta.”

In the hallway a computer and projector were set up to demonstrate a video created by students in the Computer Tech Club of the school.

Music also drifted from the auditorium for visitors when the Chamber Orchestra, Student Recital, Chamber Group, and Jazz Band performed.