Nursery practices art of teaching science

Preschoolers in the Riverdale Temple’s nursery school program can already distinguish a Picasso from a Pollock or a Mondrian from a Matisse, and even attempt to emulate the artists’ works. Now, the school plans to build on its budding scholars’ understanding of art to teach them about science.

Starting in mid-January, the nursery school will begin teaching a course in Science Technology Engineering Art and Math, or STEAM —something that few nursery schools offer.

The class, part of the Riverdale Temple’s after-school program, is geared toward 3- to 6-year-olds. It will be taught by Alexandra “Ali” Abikzer, a pre-kindergarten teacher. She began the art portion of the class in the fall and will move into the science portion in the spring session.

Michelle Roos’ 4-year-old son is a student in the after-school program, and she praises the work of Abikzer.

“My child was not the most artistic, nor was he particularly interested in art. He now has a surprisingly deep understanding of many artists!  He can tell you which is a Picasso and which is a Pollock,” she said.

“He now begs to go to the Met [Metropolitan Museum of Art] so he can learn more about ‘his artists.’ He is also much more confident and interested in making art,” Roos said in an email to The Press.

Abikzer, the teacher, first began crafting the program when she was a stay-at-home mom with her second child and working on her master’s degree in Early Childhood Education at Hunter College. She wanted to find a job outside of the college’s student teaching program – and ended up creating one.

Abikzer founded her “Ali’s Art in the Park” program to help students learn about architecture, gravity, light and shadows by studying the works of artists such as Matisse and Van Gough. She began working at Riverdale Temple in 2015 and is currently a lead pre-kindergarten teacher.

“I’ve always loved art and I’ve taken art as a child,” she said. “So I decided to make my own art program and I started the summer of 2014 and we did it in Seton Park… Ever since then, it just catches on by word-of-mouth.”

During the fall semester at the Riverdale Temple’s after-school program, Abikzer and her students studied the works of different artists. “Last week we did Mondrian: Cut out black paper and used parallel and vertical lines and primary colors,” she said.

In the spring semester, the course will get more complicated: Students will build 3-D models of Mondrian’s work, figuring out how to fit the pieces together. The project is intended to develop problem-solving skills and teach team work, she said.

“I love science for little kids and I’m always amazed. That excites me to bring my love of art and mix it with science,” Abikzer said.

There have already been elements of science in her art class this fall. For one of the assignments, during which pre-schoolers learned about the Dutch painter Piet Mondrian, students cut out strips of black paper, arranged them in parallel and perpendicular lines and filled in spaces with primary colors to make their own artwork, imitating that of the great artist.

“I just really like giving children knowledge of famous artists and famous scientists and things normally I really think adults don’t think children can get or really grasp – and they love it,” Abikzer said.

Following the success of Abikzer’s “Ali’s Art in the Park” program, she approached the Riverdale Temple school’s director Linda Herman about including her program in the curriculum. Abikzer’s enthusiasm and her success with “Ali’s Art in the Park” were convincing, Herman said.

“I feel like we are creating this kind of community where teachers can try new things and experiment,” she said. “It’s so rare in our society with education. It’s usually so rigid and I wanted to give teachers that space to think about of the box and dream.”

The new semester of classes begins on Jan. 19. The weekly one-hour class is geared toward students ages 3 to 6. The after-school program is open to students of all religious faiths. For more information about Akibzer’s class, visit her website at www.alisartinthepark.com.