Today AAA fourth grade classes traveled to Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art for the partnership program, My School My Museum (MSMM). MSMM is an expansion of the existing partnership between AAA and Crystal Bridges Museum. Today’s visit was the third of four trips that will take place this academic year. Each MSMM visit focuses on an academic discipline with connections to works of art in the Museum’s collection. AAA’s Director of Arts Integration, the fourth-grade teachers and Museum Educators collaborated prior to the museum visit to discuss the academic outcomes and connections made during the tour. Today’s theme was mathematics! Students are learning all about angels in Mrs. Jessica Bogle’s class.
Students began their experience in the galleries. The wonderful Museum Educators provided a tour of four works of art with geometric connections using angles. The artworks included: Alvin Loving’s Cube, Lenore Tawney’s Orinoco, Theodore Roszak’s 42nd Street (Times Square) and David Smith’s 5 Ciarcs.
After the gallery tour students engaged in an Arts Integration activity. Mr. Jones, Director of Arts Integration and Museum Partnerships, used the David Smith sculpture, 5 Ciarcs, as the concentration for the activity. During their gallery stop at 5 Ciarcs the students were asked to find various “angles” throughout the work. Using paper protractors students measured the angles and recorded the degree of each angle in number form on a piece of paper. The documented degrees were saved for the Arts Integration project. Students took their list of numbered degrees and began translating them back into their angle form on drawing paper creating a composition filled with lines and shapes with specific angles that accurately correspond to the sculpture. The students will have the opportunity to fill the shapes with a color scheme of their choice resulting in original, non-objective works of art using geometric principles that highlight acute, right and obtuse angles.
THANK YOU to the amazing Museum Educators at Crystal Bridges Museum: Paramita, Matthew, Alex and Sigrid!