This past week, Art Foundations (Ages 8-11) class instructor Rachel Wiseman took her students outside for a creative project where they collected leaves, twigs and other natural materials and constructed miniature “boats” which they set afloat upon Mason Pond for all to see.
“As a teacher, I strive to build lessons that can provide my students with both artistic exploration and personal enrichment,” explained Miss Rachel. “The general idea of the lesson was to expose the students to Eco Art Sculpture through having them collect natural materials and create boats that they could float onto the Mason Pond.”
The lesson was designed to have many valuable components and provide the students with a learning experience that would contribute to both their artistic and personal development. They had to first experiment with materials, attaining an understanding that sometimes when creating art, your project can fall apart, and that it’s okay. “Sometimes it’s the experience of rebuilding something after having it fall apart that can give us the confidence we need to embrace the challenges we face, both in art and in life,” said Rachel.
Students had to make choices about the objects they were selecting to create their boats, experimenting with the buoyancy of their materials, and clearly having to acknowledge that rocks don’t float!
“Nature is degenerative, continually cycling between growth and decomposition,” Rachel stated. “After shipping off our boats, we would not be retrieving them. They would be left in the lake to interact with the rest of nature, eventually decomposing, just as everything else, and with that, there is the experience of letting go. It is hard to put time and effort into creating a work of art, just to leave it outside and know that it’s going to fall apart, but in life, there is value to understanding that it is okay to let go, and that the experiences we have can be just as profound without possessing the different components of them.”
Aside from the bigger ideas put into the lesson, the students were able to get outside in the sun to release energy, work together collaboratively to construct their sculptures, form relationships, and communicate with one another about their different approaches to the project.
“As we moved outside to begin collecting materials, the students all seemed to be really excited about what materials they wanted to use and how they wanted to approach the assignment,” described Rachel. “We all gathered around the pond to construct the sculptures, and this was where everyone seemed to be in their own worlds. Some students were focusing solely on the construction the entire time while others were anxious to test their boats in different stages to ensure that they would float. Finally we all gathered as a group to watch each boat get shipped off and hear what each artist had to say about their project. Some were discussing what inspired their designs while others were expressing how challenging it was to work with natural materials. The children all approached the assignment so differently that we ended up with a beautiful array of boats in different colors, shapes, and sizes, and all of the students were eager to see what theirs could do! None of the boats sank and the excitement of the activity was evident with how anxious the kids were to huddle around and see what each boat did.”
The students had a wonderful out-of-the-box experience. Thanks to Miss Rachel for implementing such a wonderful, innovative lesson into the Art Foundations curriculum.
LEARN MORE ABOUT OUR ART CLASSES
The next session of art classes will begin in February 2017!