Artist: Thomas Hart Benton & Diego Rivera: This studio relates to the big idea (stories) because the each piece that a child creates has a story behind it (either how it was made or the message the piece of art is giving off). My particular art piece tells the story of a social issue in the craft of a cartoon. This social issue is caring about our environment and animals. People have gotten into the habit of being so ignorant and not showing how they can help preserve our environment and keep it beautiful. I would use visual art integration with this as an introduction of natural resources, in science. When kids gather in groups and look at different cartoons or pictures that make a statement about an important issue, I think cartoons are a good way to incorporate that idea because kids will understand and point out everything they notice.
Artist: Faith Ringgold. This studio relates to the big idea (stories) because each picture represents a childhood book or a personal story from our childhood. My childhood book was The Very Hungry Caterpillar and I picked this because I remember absolutely LOVING this book as a child, primarily based on the colors and illustrations. This a well-known childhood book and I would read it with my parents over and over and over again so that is why this book is very close to my heart. I decided to use the pencil watercolor on the body of the caterpillar since that is the main focus and the biggest part of the caterpillar so it would really stand out. I chose red background paper because the red matches the face of the caterpillar and I think it is a good contrast color with green. The border following the piece of paper represents the different colors I remember looking at the in the book since the book is so colorful. It also represents the color of the different foods the caterpillar eats. This could be utilized in the classroom because for reading or writing (writer's workshop) each student could pick a picture book they like to read and draw an image from the book. Then we could make a class book and look at everyone's piece of art and go over why they represented the image from the book that way (why the picked the colors the did, etc).
Artist: Jean Shin. Group Members: Sarah M, Katie, C, Jessica J, Erin M. This studio relates to the big idea (stories) because it tells a story of the found object, but also incorporates another meaning of the object. Basically, it gives another way the object can be viewed. Since we had a group, we each had found objects like a hair tye, lipstick, earings, etc and we thought about those meanings as a whole. We concluded that the meanings of our objects all incorporate beauty, and then we wanted to express how the Bible talks about beauty within, so the background is Bible excerpts and written with lipstick (one of the beauty products) is a Bible versus that talks about inner beauty. I would talk to my kids about everyday objects they use at home, in the classroom, in their room etc. and for them to put their "thinking cap" on and try really hard to think of another meaning for these objects. Once kids have objects, we could do a lesson on how important it is to save your objects and how these objects affect us in some way and why. Off of that, I would do a wrap up of how our objects are considered art and why do they make us feel a certain why, so this would be integrated with reading/writing.