Valentine’s Day is the day of love and appreciation and that is exactly what the Maclay Middle School Discovery Humanities class did. During the month of February, the Discovery Humanities class partnered with Red Hills Village, a retirement home right by Maclay School. The students created heart cards to give the people and faculty living at Red Hills Village for a fun Valentines Day surprise.
“It truly was huge because when we gave them out [the Valentine’s Day Cards] residents had tears in their eyes because they haven’t had a Valentine in so long,” middle school art teacher Kim Daniel said. “It was neat because it was great PR for us and it was a good way for the kids to make a difference.”
The Discovery Humanities Class is a brand new course that is offered to the seventh and eighth graders of Maclay Middle School. The class is made up of three components: community outreach through arts, communication studies and creative expressions. There are three different teachers who run this course: Rikki Overstreet, Daniel and Martha Kutter. These components and teachers are used to help students get a feel for the journalism courses in high school.
“My favorite part of the course is getting to learn how to work InDesign,” eighth grader Lauren Ferraro said. “My favorite thing about making the cards was how Mrs. Daniel brought the cards to the people and getting to see them smile.”
Making the Valentine’s Day cards was one of the many projects that the Discovery Humanities class has done. On top of this, they also made a magazine to mimic the high school publication The Andalusian.
“I really enjoyed getting to make the magazine,” seventh grader Chloe Kerr said. “It was really fun and I learned a lot.”
Overall, the students in the course, the residents, the faculty and Red Hills Village enjoyed making and receiving the Valentine’s Day cards. This is just the first year of the Discovery Humanities class so there are many more projects like these coming soon.
“We did it [Discovery Humanities class] last year but we’ve revamped it this year,” Daniel said. “Last year we were going to have a passion project at the end but I think it was just too broad and we also realized there was a journalism track in high school so we thought it would be good for kids to learn Canva and InDesign.”
BLOG: https://2soulsisters.blogspot.com/2023/02/discovery-class-op-art-heart-designs.html
