My fourth graders are amazing, and this project really showcased their ability to work individually and as a team. To start, I read Martin's Big Words by Doreen Rappaport and
As Good as Anybody: Martin Luther King and Abraham Joshua Heschel's Amazing March Toward Freedom by Richard Michelson to the class. We then had a class discussion about the similarities between King and Heschel's life experiences. After our talk, I broke the class up into four teams. Each team was charged with creating a life size sculpture of either King or Heschel at one point in their lives.
Team 1: Young Heschel
Team 2: Rabbi Heschel
Team 3: Young Martin
Team 4: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
The bonus challenge was that the class as a whole was responsible for creating an installation of these sculptures in our school gallery. Their mission was to Engage, Educate, and Impact our audience. Each team had to create a backdrop for their sculpture, and create a gallery card to accompany their work. The final installation was incredible, and definitely engaged, educated, and impacted our school community. The class was so proud of their work, and the school community raved about their creations. Here are some pictures of the process.
I saved everything from water bottles to boxes to paper towel rolls for this project. Each group chose either a balloon or a large bottle to cover with paper mache to create the head. We started using newspaper dipped in paper mache to create the form, but found that paper mache gauze worked much better due to time and clean up needs. Attaching the heavy head to the body was challenging, and each group came up with some ingenious solutions.
After the head was created, the armature for the body was constructed. This took a lot of patience, teamwork, and masking tape! You can see their vision coming to life.
After the sculptures were created, they needed to be painted completely to hide the armature. I stressed craftsmanship and teamwork. It was really fun to see students naturally find a way to contribute to their team's effort. One student found that she had an incredible understanding of mixing color, and became the color mixing master for her team. This project took the majority of a trimester. The artists never once complained about the process or got bored with the project. They were engaged and driven. It was a true joy to watch this whole process unfold.
These sculptures started to become more real, and graced the studio for weeks. All of my other classes enjoyed watching them change over time. After creating the backgrounds and gallery cards, we were finally ready to showcase the installation!
Young Heschel and Young Martin as school aged boys
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr as inspiring leaders
The entire installation on display. This is the entrance hallway to our school, which made it a perfect place for the entire school community to enjoy this installation. The size of the sculptures also made it easy for the community to relate and engage with the project. Job well done, 4th Grade artists!!!!!
