Celebrating Heroes through Movement and Visual Art

Here is a peek into the journey of a second grade project that integrated learning about famous people from history and biographies with movement and visual arts.  Working with a local artist, Mary Lyman, we began the process with making crowns to use in our final dance performance.

As we worked on the visual art projects, we also started to research a hero from history.  See Ashley in the background reading about Helen Keller, while Jack uses oil pastels and watercolors to make a bright and vibrant crown?

The students began to create a "lapbook" with information about their heroes.  We researched every day in books and on the internet.  To start out we just wrote a list of facts on slips of paper and collected them in a pocket in our books.  In the end we had a whole book with all the facts we collected, a timeline, famous quotes, family info, and similes we wrote to describe our heroes.

Another art piece we did involved making portraits of our heroes and ourselves, because we were our own heroes by the end of the project.  We did not use conventional colors for the portraits.  We might have green hair or a purple face!

Next we made silk flags that were incorporated into our dance.  The students drew a design with resist and then painted the flag.  The resist washed out and left white lines behind.  On the flags the students' designs were inspired by their hero and often times depicted an animal that had similar characteristics.  The peaceful butterfly represented Martin Luther King, Jr. on Nayeli's flag. 

One of the coolest parts of the project was getting together with partners and writing a conversation with facts and questions between the two heroes.  Some heroes related well together, like Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King, Jr.  The kids did a great job sharing information and working together.

Jackie Robinson talks with Amelia Earhart.

Neil Armstrong and Thomas Jefferson work together.

The final performance was awesome.  Mary choreographed a dance with some of the students' own moves that were inspired by their heroes.  She had them make up a series of 5 movements that represented something important about their hero.  I was proud of them all for their creativity, public speaking, work with timelines and great memories for the dances!  Way to go Second Grade!