Seurat Rhymes with Dot

What do you call pointillism, pinwheels, and polka dots?  

A recipe for something pretty awesome!

I love when things come together.  I mean really come together.  Sometimes it just feels like certain
ideas and concepts were meant to unite.  This September the students in the library are exploring some pretty amazing concepts: character traits, creativity, fine art, and how to make their mark by being a positive influence in the world.  These are all part of the lessons being planned around this year's big idea:  BE THE GOOD.

We're celebrating International Dot Day which is September 15ish and the International Day of Peace which is September 21st by creating pointillism inspired pinwheels that will be displayed in front of our school during the week of September 15th.

Pointillism

To start this lesson, students K-5  began by looking at prints of paintings by the artist Georges Seurat. 

A Sunday on La Grande Jatte, Georges Seurat 1884

As we explored Seurat's painting we discussed what we saw in the images - Where are the people?  What are they doing?  Why might they be there? After some initials discussions students were asked to look even closer at the paintings - did they notice anything special about the picture?  It didn't take long before someone announced "It's all dots!"  This lead to a great discussion about Seurat and his style of painting - pointillism.  The kids were pretty amazed to learn that the paintings were all made of millions of tiny dots of color.  Next, we talked about how long a painting like this would take to create and how patient Seurat must have been.

Character Traits

Talking about how patient Seurat must have been to spend so much time painting with only dots (the painting A Sunday on La Grande Jatte took him two years to complete!) - lead to a mini lesson about character traits. Here's where some of my favorite books from the library were incorporated:

Exclamation Mark by Amy Krouse Rosenthal

Dot by Patricia Intriago

The Dot by Peter H. Reynolds

Little Blue and Little Yellow by Leo Lionni

I love every one of these books! After reading one of these books we explored the idea of character traits further.   How could we describe the characters? What if we looked deeper? What happens when we think about the characters beyond what we see just on the outside?  Who were these characters?  How did they MAKE THEIR MARK on the world?  How did they choose to BE THE GOOD!  Oh my gosh - my librarian heart is just exploding with happy connections here!

Pinwheels, Dot Day and Peace

Working as a librarian at an elementary Fine Arts Magnet school means that I spend a lot of time challenging myself to look for ways to integrate core subjects, fine arts concepts and literary ideas.  Can the amazing work of Seurat, learning about character traits, and inspiring children's literature be combined into something meaningful and memorable for students?  Yes!

Enter International Dot Day and International Day of Peace!

The library is challenging each student to decorate a paper pinwheel in a style inspired by Seurat's Pointillism - using DOTS and to include on the pinwheel words that describe their own personal character traits that they want to use to MAKE THEIR MARK ON THE WORLD!  As we created and decorated the paper for our pinwheels we discussed what would happen if each of us used our best character traits to make our mark - how could that change the world for the better?  The students are excited and so am I.   The student pinwheels will be displayed for one full school day in front of our school during the week of International Dot Day and the International Day of Peace.  I'm thinking September 17ish.

Shopping for Pinwheel Supplies

Students used synonym trait lists and a thesaurus to help pick traits that described themselves

We used sponge tipped painters to make our painting easy to manage

I made a sample pinwheel for students to see what we would be creating

So far, about half of the classes have created the paper portion of the pinwheels.  There's still a bit of work to be done - but I can't wait to see the end result.  

I think it's going to be pretty good.