Primarily Mondrian

Hallie Cirino, 5’s Teacher, CHT Preschool, Westport, CT

My co-teacher, Sylvia Grannan, and I were a bit surprised that some of our students were still unsure of shape names by this time in the school year. A geometry unit was in order, and immediately Sylvia thought of Piet Mondrian. After displaying some of his paintings, the children made observations of Mondrian’s work:

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Sadie, who has lived in NYC remarked, “It looks like apartment buildings and elevators.” Most of the other children noticed the concrete elements: colors, shapes, and lines. In truth, as we set out to find biographical information on Mondrian, we found that both he and the analysis of his work are so esoteric that it’s difficult to teach the children about the artist. However, we seized the opportunity to emphasize primary colors.

One day, Sylvia had the children close their eyes and said, “Imagine red. Just think about red.” The room was more or less silent for a minute or so, as our 5-year-olds pondered red. Sylvia gave the children a blank sheet of white paper and asked them to illustrate what they saw, and then write about it.

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The children shared their results at circle time and then decided to put it all together into a class poem:

Red Is:

By the Unicorn Class, March 2014

Red is a face,

Red is a volcano erupting,

Red is anger,

Red is a zipper,

Red is butterflies,

Red is fire,

Red is our class color,

Red is a ladder,

Red is a sun,

Red is a meteor.

It was such a successful process; we did the same for yellow and blue. In addition, at the art center, we put out black electrical tape, and tempera paints in the primary colors. We found small, stiff canvasses, and the children went to town, taping their canvasses with vertical and horizontal lines and painting the resulting quadrangles. Here’s a display of several together:

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Science: Drawing to See, Wonder and Learn

“Once we draw, all of the sudden we begin to see again. Were we blind? How could we have ignored the beauty, the intricacies of these simplest things? The convoluted network of veins in an oak leaf, the graceful curve of a clover’s stem, the starry splendor of a humble dandelion…” Fredrick Franck

When teachers cover non-fiction units, we try to provide field or classroom experiences so that children can engage meaningfully and therefore fully assimilate what they learn. We grow fast plants in the classroom so that their life process can be observed. We lug in boxes of beautiful books about sea animals, icebergs, and cloud formations so that our students can see rather than just listen to facts. We bring in ant colonies, leaves, and rocks – all to bring the outside world into the room.

All of this is brought to a higher level when we draw. I always tell my students that scientists learn by drawing.

 

Thomas Edison filled over 3,000 journals in his lifetime, filled with sketches and notes. 

Frankie's snail

Frankie, a third grader, learns about snails by carefully copying a picture out of a book.

In the absence of the real thing, photographs can be helpful. Right now education publications are putting out photo-laden books based on the Common Core, which are flooded with non-fiction. But a rich and detailed painting can provide the engagement we are often looking for when introducing our kids to unfamiliar topics. Looking at art is pleasing to our senses, and creates an environment that is open and inviting. Additionally, the act of drawing is a meditation – and when students create their own reproduction of something, it invests them in the topic. Their pictures also allow us to see what they already know, so we can easily differentiate, allow them to form their own questions, and help them to find the answers they need.

TRY THIS:

Jay, Green Woodpecker, Pigeons and Redstart

 

1. Take 15 quiet minutes to copy all or part of this Thomas Barlow painting from the YBCA collection into your journal (no phones, no interruptions). Don’t stop before the 15 minutes is over. During that time, pay attention to what you are thinking and wondering. Make notes right on the page as they come into your head.

2. Now take 10 minutes to label everything you can on your picture. Anything you don’t know, label with a question mark or write down what you are wondering. You have now laid out your own research outline for a study of birds.

I begin all science units by having the students draw. In the past we’ve started by drawing plants, the human skeleton, sea creatures, clouds, trees, earthworms, rocks, ants and owls. Find a painting of what you are studying (I found this bird painting on the Yale Center for British Art online collection)!

Slowing down to draw actually speeds up the learning: you would not believe the mad rush to the books and computers once the students realize they haven’t been able to properly label their beloved drawings! When a child draws, she realizes that she has questions. Those questions become her drive to learn.

How-To: Use the Online Collection

The Yale Center for British Art’s vast online collection is a great resource to use in the classroom. Here are step-by-step instructions with images to walk you through a topical search of the online collection.

Step 1: Go to the Yale Center for British Art website. You can click here, or type in http://britishart.yale.edu/ into your web browser.

Step 2: Under “Collections,” select “Search.” You can also click on “Highlights,” “Using the Collection,” and “Related Resources” to find other materials and information that can help you in the classroom. Step 2_Collections and Search

Step 3: After clicking on “Search,” the “Search All Collections” webpage will come up. You might use this search if you are looking for a specific painting or various works by one artist. Searching all collections will give you artwork and literature across all mediums. To narrow your search, look to the right hand column and decide what you are looking for.

Step 3_The search page

Step 4: For this example, we will search the “Paintings and Sculptures.” Selecting this will send us to the “Paintings and Sculptures,” search page. As you can see, selecting a medium will allow for even more options to narrow your search and find exactly what you are looking for.

Step 3_seaching paintings and sculpture

Step 5: Search for the paintings and sculptures that you want to see. By clicking on the “Classification” or “Genre” options, a dropbox menu will appear with various options that have already by pre-selected. These can be helpful in coming up with ideas, or you can choose to type in your own original search. For this example, we will look for Animals in Art. We can see that there is an option for “animal art” in the “Genre” menu.
Step 5_Selecting a genre

Step 6: After selecting “animal art” and clicking on Find, we are sent to a page with all of the paintings and sculptures that are categorized under the “animal art” genre. Remember, you can narrow down your search even further by providing more information in the search page. You can also narrow down your search using the various options on the right side of the Search Results page.

Step 6_search results

Step 7: Select an image from the Search Results page to learn more about the artwork. Many of the pieces that are part of the Permanent Collection here at the British Art Center have images that can be downloaded and used for your use in the classroom. Simply click on the “Download” option underneath the image, and select how you would like to download the image. Images that the British Art Center does not have rights to will not be available to download.

Step 8_Selecting an Image

The online collection is a valuable resource that the Yale Center for British Art provides and understanding how to search the collection is necessary in utilizing this resource. Please feel free to comment with any questions about the online collection and how to use it.