VESSELS OF MEMORY: Help my kids Weave their way through ART
My students need various sizes of reed, coiling material, yarns, and basket bases in order to participate in hands on learning.
$1,157 goal
Hooray! This project is fully funded
Hooray! This project is fully funded
Celebrating Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month
This project is a part of the Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month celebration because
it supports a Latino teacher or a school where the majority of students are Latino.
"A beautifully made basket is not only a container. It is also a thing of beauty that helps to lift the spirit. Making a basket can provide the opportunity for a person to express their view of the world in an artistic way."
~Iroquoismuseum.org
My students have a zest for understanding new ways of learning.
They are supportive of each other and varying personalities in a classroom environment. They exemplify group working models evidenced by ownership in products they make. In the Art room, other subjects are expanded upon by way of project based activities. At the same time, they crave self expression and pursue it any chance they can get in our school's art community. As an arts educator it is my privilege to design my curriculum to support those needs.
My Project
My kids will have an opportunity to make various baskets and learn the ways to design them according to African and American cultures. This process involves steps that require group participation. Making baskets provide an encoded framework for ritualized retelling of individual and collective stories. Both the history of the Navajo ancestors and early American history in general can be taught by the sustained investigation of basketry. Making a basket can reflect my student's identity... feelings are codified in a basket's physical elements. Materials, designs and even the methods of construction of baskets convey important messages regarding cultural values and beliefs. They can facilitate my student's capacity to order and make sense of experience. When one traces a path along a basket's coils from the center to the outer edge, this action signifies the historical progression of a group of people through time as well as the cyclical nature of the individual life course.
This project will make my art room a place of true multicultural, cross curricular learning.
A tactile experience working with pliable forms from nature will place my kids in the natural world; understanding indigenous people and the oldest known form of technology. From wide winnowing baskets to weaving and braiding, stunning similarities between African and african American basketry serve as part of this learning process in history and social studies.
DonorsChoose is the most trusted classroom funding site for teachers.
As a teacher-founded nonprofit, we're trusted by thousands of teachers and supporters across the country. This classroom request for funding was created by Mr. Vernola and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
