Rainy Day and Other Activities

There are the inevitable rainy days in the VI. There are days when we just couldn't work outside, times when we'd spend a week indoors because of the weather. While this slowed our progress on the mural, there were still things we could do that related to the mural as our theme, our project, the focus of our integrated studies.

We decided we needed to write letters to thank people - all the donors of tile, the arts council for the grant, the principals for permission to do this project, the teacher behind our mural wall who put up with all our noise. Mr. Anthony, dubbed "Superman" by the students. They all deserved letters of thanks. Students chose a partner, the dyad chose a recipient, and together they wrote their letters. No fuss, no arguing. I corrected spelling and grammar on their draft, wrote an example of proper letter heading on the board, and students went back to complete their final drafts. Bam, language arts in action.

I asked someone I know, an urban planner, to come in and talk to the students about art in public places. She had overseen the community beautification project in the school's neighborhood, which included a mosaic sign for the community (created after I had purchased the tile, it was just serendipitous). Wanda spoke with all the classes about public art, community development, neighborhood beautification and pride, and mural design. She was great! (And, of course, the students wrote a letter to her, too.)

The students also created certificate borders, so that all of our supporters and donors will receive handmade certificates. Each one is unique, colorful, and created by one of the students.

When I was gone for a week attending the National Art Education Association Convention (fabulous!), my students worked in small groups on a "mural grant application." They had to write why murals are important, where they'd like to create another mural at school and why there, draw/color their design, and come up with a shopping list based on a price list I gave them and a $4,000 budget. This was graded - and the answers amazed me. "We want to put our mural in the gym so people are more active." "We want to put our mural in the cafeteria so people eat more healthy foods." "Team B (Special Education) needs our mural so they have something to be proud of and people will like them." The students really learned about the power of murals and public art, and really thought about what they'd do.

Wow.