Stratton Elementary Lesson Plans

Documentation Above In Selected Work

Stratton Elementary: Lesson 2: Positive Messages

Since October was anti-bullying month we decided to work on this sculpture. The goal was for students to write random encouraging, positive, and uplifting messages to go into their personally designed tubes in the sculpture. Then come the next day, the students randomly chose a message from a different student’s tube to encourage them throughout the day. However, rather than solely focusing on preventing bullying, we wanted to focus on positivity and building one another up. We wanted to bring students together to achieve a common goal through creative expression. Each student has their own personal experiences with bullying and violence, and students were able to reconcile and find peace with themselves and each other through this project. (Click the Contact button below to view Lesson Plan 2).

Stratton Elementary: Lesson 3: Puzzle Pieces

Unless taught or previously given exposure, children can have a small or narrow perspective of the world around them, in particular, their understanding of a community may be restricted to their families. This activity was designed to help students connect with their classmates by using creative expression to identify and share what they each love about their school community. Therefore, each student collaged a puzzle piece representing their favorite parts of the community (person, place, or thing). This could be their hobbies such as sports and play and cultures such as arts and music. We then assembled the puzzle pieces together to represent the community as a whole. By learning about others’ favorite part of the community, students were able to see everyone’s uniqueness and how each individual complements and fits together to form a community. The students gained insights on what others value about their community which helped them to further define their own idea of the role they play within this community. (Click the Contact button below to view Lesson Plan 3).

Stratton Elementary: Lesson 5: Masks

Drawing inspiration from artist Nick Cave and his Soundsuit projects, our class focused on performance art. First, we decorated masks with a variety of materials including feathers, pipe cleaners, string, and faux fur so that we could see some movement in the masks while we danced. Then, we were divided into three groups and came up with four dance moves and performed them  in front of the class and the video camera while listening to music. Our performance is a celebration of ourselves in costume. Because these soundsuit costumes cover the entire body, the viewer cannot see the person underneath and categorize them based on their skin color or the gender underneath. (Click the Contact button below to view Lesson Plan 5).

Stratton Elementary: Lesson 6: Paper Cubes

Drawing inspiration Azucena Roma’s HeLa sculpture, the students created their own paper cube sculptures to represent a story or cause they were passionate about. The students decided as a class to advocate and tell stories about animal rights and to bring awareness to animal cruelty. Students learned different techniques like shading and symbolism to tell their stories in a non-linear format. (Click the Contact button below to view Lesson Plan 6).