We are at the end of another jam packed year at OISE, so in amongst the classes, field trips and papers, I was very happy to have some time with children to work on a collaborative art project together. ICS art teacher Tara Rousseau generously opened her classroom to me again this year, this time with her grade three class. MA student Jennifer Ford-Sharpe also volunteered to help; she was central to the planning and implementation of the project. As learning about First Nations peoples is in the gr. 3 social studies curriculum, we used our new Aboriginal Education garden at OISE as the starting point. The students visited the garden in the fall to learn about native plant species and their role in aboriginal culture in Canada, and they made drawings of the plants in situ. Back in the classroom they learned about the importance of the four cardinal directions in First Nations cultures, and were inspired by the work of artists Christi Belcourt (Metis), Bill Reid (Haida), Jane Ash Poitras (Cree), and Carl Beam (Ojibway). This led the children to work on their own multi-media artworks using paint, clay, photographic transfers, and poetry. Their works centred on the importance of the cardinal directions in aboriginal culture and the connections between humans, wildlife, and plants. Such rich environmental learning! A few photos of the results are below, with more on the OISE website, found here: http://www.oise.utoronto.ca/ese/ESE_in_Practice/Eco-Art_Projects.html
Thanks to Tara and Jennifer for their partnership in facilitating this wonderful eco-art project!
Growing in New Directions
Posted July 22nd 2014 at 6:37 pm by HilaryInwood
  
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