Centro Educacional Leonardo Da Vinci

By Trista Whitehurst Peixoto

First grade went on the great adventure of learning about art in connection with two great artists, Wassily Kandinsky and Heloisa Monjardim, and four amazing projects, Science Through Senses, Geography, Once Upon a Time, and our mini World Food Day Project.

Our first project this year began with Science Through Senses. This allowed us to make a great connection with Kandinsky through sight, sound, taste, touch and smell. Wassily Kandinsky was an artist that used a high level of senses throughout his work. It is believed that Kandinsky had synethesia, a condition that allows a person to appreciate sounds, colors and words with two or more senses simultaneously. For Kandinsky, colors and painted marks triggered particular sounds or musical notes and vice versa. This allowed us to tie in our Science Through Senses Project and explore our sense of sight and hearing at the same time.

Within our Art Project we were able to discover each sense through the works of art we produced. We explored our sense of sight through reproducing Kandinsky’s Color Study: Squares with Concentric Circles.

We were able to use our sense of hearing to inspire our Music Painting.

We studied the sense of touch through our texturized Cut-Out Shapes Artwork and Flag Art.

Finally, we were able to tie in all of our senses, specifically taste and smell with the creation of Fruit Mandalas.

The combination of science and art proved to be a great success through these joint projects!

Geography is also another project that First Grade started in the beginning of the year. Throughout the project we discovered the world through the themes of travel and learning how the world is organized by continents, oceans and countries. In relation to the Art Project, First Grade was able to make the connection that Kandinsky was born in Russia but settled in Germany. Throughout his work we were able to observe Russian landscapes and architecture, specifically through Kandinsky’s “Couple Riding” painting displayed in the Leonardo da Vinci School Museum. We were also able to make connections to German landscapes and architecture throughout his other works. As a final blend of World Geography and Art, First Grade created their own flags, inspired by the shapes, colors and themes of symmetry throughout Kandinsky’s work.

In the months of September and October, the First Grade class embarked on a mini project for World Food Day, to learn about the importance of food in a global context. They participated in a poster contest created by the United Nations. Throughout our project we learned about how our everyday actions and decisions have an impact on our climate and environment. By participating in the United Nations World Food Day Poster Contest, the first grade classes were able to bring awareness of these issues internationally. The children created art posters themed through problems facing food in our world today and fairy tales. The United Nations used fairy tales to illustrate world food problems for children this year, allowing us to make a great connection to our main project for the second semester, Once Upon a Time…

We were also able to connect our Once Upon a Time Project to our second semester Artist, Heloisa Monjardim, through the exploration of the fairy tale, Cinderella. While learning about the elements of the story Cinderella, we mixed in some plant science and took a moment to study pumpkins. Using what we learned from our Science Through Senses Project, first grade studied the pumpkins through touch, smell, sight, hearing and taste. Each class had their own pumpkin that they dissected, studied, ate, carved and used a model for their Pumpkin Chalk Art, inspired by Heloisa’s Pumpkin Painting. We used chalk as a way to explore a different kind of medium for creating art and an homage to Heloisa’s oil pastel paintings. The children loved using a different material that they could draw with and blend with their figure tips! The culmination of projects allowed us to not only combine Science and Art, but Literature as well in a fun, multilevel learning experience for first grade.

We had a lot of fun this year blending our Art Project with Science, Literature and Geography. We were able to use a multitude of different materials such acrylic paint, paper, glue, food, plants, stencils, watercolors, chalk, crayons and sound, that have strengthened and expanded our understanding of art. Finally, we became familiar with two amazing artists, Heloisa Monjardim and Wassily Kandinsky, that have helped us see the world around us in different ways. Our Art Project experiences this year will be influential to us as we continue to grow and discover in First Grade and beyond.