Creative Art Celebrations
Milepost 1 held a ‘Gallery Exit Point,’ showcasing all the beautiful art they made in their exploration of Ghanaian Culture.
By Roland Schmidt, Team Leader & Teaching Assistant Milepost 1
The stories we tell..
This week, Milepost 1 will be ending their exploration into the IPC unit, ‘The Stories We Tell,’ with an Art Gallery Exit Point, highlighting all the works of art they created over the past 6 weeks. The unit the ‘Stories We Tell’ focused on Geography and Art Goals, allowing the children to dip into the foundational geography knowledge such as the cardinal directions and the continents.
As a milepost we chose to focus on the country Ghana, first exploring stories with the folktale character, Anansi. Anansi is the God of stories, wisdom, and trickery. He is very cunning and is mostly portrayed in the shape of a spider. One of my favorites is:
Getting creative
The children also got to explore aspects of Ghanaian culture, such as the Kente Cloth, a beautiful handwoven cloth made from cotton. The Kente Cloth was historically worn by royalty but is now worn for special occasions.They had to use their ‘creative side’ with acrylic paints, markers, cloth, and clay. The main art goal we focused on was to ‘be able to create original artwork to serve a given purpose using given media.
Being able to explore all the different media is such an eye opening experience for the children. For some of them, it was the first time making a mask from clay or ‘weaving paper cloths.’ It’s also amazing to see the children lose themselves in the creative process. These types of activities are very engaging for the mind and the senses.
Showcasing the student’s art in a Gallery Exhibition / Exit Point is the perfect way to celebrate our learning from this unit. Just another way the IPC curriculum allows our children to bring out their inner magic!
