As part of our Grade 2 inquiry into the nature of creativity, we've been exploring how to create using Makey Makeys during my MakerSpace co-curricular.
I've played with the Makey Makey for over a year, but this was my first time to actually teach it to students.
In this unit, we were exploring how color can give the illusion of space. I was also looking for an activity that would give the children a chance to explore a new material in a new way.
Our school cafeteria uses about 60 flats of eggs a day. I've collected a number of these cartons and was wondering how I could incorporate them into some kind of art activity or exploration. In this unit with the grade twos, we've been exploring tessellating shapes as well as perspective. We started to explore how we could use these cartons to show different perspectives, as well as tessellate shapes and patterns over a surface. The result was these interesting artworks.
Next time, I think we might look at how these pieces fit together to create a whole--this would be an interesting way for these young students to explore the gestalt concept (the whole is greater than the sum of the parts). Another idea I've had is to take these forms and use them as way fo showing two images, but from different points of view.
We've been looking at emotions and expressions in artworks, how artists express feelings, and how we interpret the emotions of others. One of the interesting discussions to come out of the Grade 2s was how a single artwork can be interpreted differently by viewers. This realization is connected to the PYP key concept of perspective, and how our view of the world can differ from that of others.
In this project, students depicted two emotions, which were then woven together. The background of each image was created with texture rubbings and colors which the students selected to represent each emotion. After the pieces were woven together, we discussed and reflected on how well we communicated these emotions--it was interesting to discuss how what we communicate can be different from what is understood by the receiver.
