Life is a Journey

Premessa

To provide a stimulating learning environment where children can experiment with a variety of art techniques to produce innovative art works relating to the geography of their world. 
Build on existing  knowledge and experience of classroom geography in a new and creative way.

Metodologia

To encourage the children ,through a hands on approach, to experiment with a variety of skills and  materials choosing the most appropriate for the success of their work.
To provide a stimulating engaging programme which will allow every individual student the opportunity to explore and develop ideas on a geographical theme.
Promote enjoyment and creativity as well as aiding cognitive ability and critical thinking.
Aim to improve motivation, concentration, confidence and teamwork by engaging in a programme of weekly hands on activities where children will experiment and share ideas about their work.
Using artists from the Guggenheim collection demonstrate the varied interpretations and unique outcomes of combining art and geography as a theme.
Encourage curiosity about the world around them through both investigative map work in the classroom and outdoor investigations including the trip to the Guggenheim, Venice.

Nodi tematici

Our project ran from January to April with a parents Guggenheim Workshop which took  place in school in June and a trip to the Guggenheim Museum in April.
Phase 1. Introduction to the project Arte e Geografia
The children used Google earth to look at their house on a map of the local area.
They looked at their home in relation to the school, Rosa, Bassano deal Grappa and Venice. ( In the classroom they looked at Vicenza as a province of Italy, Italy in relation to Europe , Europe and the continents and how the continents make up the world map)

Week 1 . "Know your town like the back of your hand". Using  a blank spaced map the  children drew round their hand and filled in the spaces in the map with geographical words and symbols as well as personal references and patterns.

Week 2. Using Google Earth on the IWB the children located Venice on the map. Using A3 paper the children made their own map of Venice and its sestiere.

Once the map was completed the children learned various folding techniques to make  their map portable.
Phase 2.  The children  worked in 3 rotating groups over a 12 week period. Each group worked on a specific geography related art topic with all 3 topics involving a different art medium.
Group A.    Dreams and Adventures
An investigation into real and imaginary journeys through the work of Cornell, Chagall , Rousseau and Klee.
The children looked at artists who travelled and were influenced by art and culture from around the world and also looked at Cornell who used resources closer to home to help him create his incredible boxes.

-Collections and collage. Egyptian box collection inspired by the work of Cornell and linked to the classroom topic Egyptians. ( History / Geography link with maps and symbols from Egyptian topic)

-An aboriginal journey through dream time – The children created their own symbols after studying.  a unit on Aboriginal art. They then worked in small groups to make a collaborative symbol map.

Group B.  Geographical Progress
The children  looked  at  the progress made with how we interact with our geographical surroundings.(Paper Maps and compass to Google Earth)
Partnership art – Through Facebook the children  contacted past students and teachers of the school at various locations around the world and exchanged  digital and paper postcard. Each card was  designed by the students to represent their own interpretation of the theme art and geography. The children then located each country on their class map and followed the journey of their cards by post. The mapping of this journey then formed an abstract line map made of thread.

Group C. Travelling through Space and Time - A Journey.
This phase of the project took the children from their place in the local community i.e. Home/ School to Italy/ Venice to World/ Universe.
The children  collected patterns from the school environment to make their own version of "ViciniLontano". They worked individually and  collaboratively to map out  a large scale version which they then transferred onto polysyrene tiles.

They then printed the tiles in a variety of sequences to produce unique garden maps.
We involved our parents in a home school project where the children and their parents collected patterns in and around their home. Parents were then invited into school at the end of the project  to help compose their own polystyrene print maps.