familiar with a pentagonal prism, a solid that appeared in both of these
works.
Now that students had developed a sense for Cubism, it was time for
them to become Cubist artists themselves! Using pattern blocks and a
shape template, students first traced a variety of two-dimensional
shapes onto a piece of cardstock. Next, while directing the students’
attention to an image projected on the classroom’s whiteboard of the
local Dallas skyline, the second grade teacher and I explained how
these 2D shapes would serve as “rooftops” to the buildings in their
Cubist art. When the teacher drew vertical lines down from the vertices
of each 2D shapes drawn on her paper, an audible “Ohhhh!” could be
heard as students actively observed how the line segments now
became edges, resulting in the appearance and, ultimately, the
creation of three-dimensional shapes (figure 3). This remarkable “Aha!”
moment was an invaluable learning experience for the second grade
students, and truly tapped into their spatial visualization skills.
Students were then instructed to use a ruler or straightedge to draw
vertical lines from the vertices of their traced 2D shapes down to the
bottom edge of their “canvasses” (figure 4), resulting in the creation of
a Cubist-like city skyline. We encouraged our artists to draw some of
the lines “on a slant” to give the impression of Cubism. Students then
colored in their Cubist masterpieces using a variety of colors (figure 5).
Figure 4. Second graders use pattern blocks and shape templates to create Cubist art.
The following day, the second graders entered their classroom and
discovered that their teacher had transformed it into an art gallery
(figure 6). The students gathered around the “exhibit,” marveling at how
different everyone’s Cubist art appeared, in terms of color, the number
and types of 2D shapes traced, and the number and “slant-iness” of
the buildings that emerged.
Figure 3. Students are amazed to see the active creation of a 3D shape.
Later that day, the classroom teacher closed this integrated math-visual
arts lesson by sharing excerpts from Picasso: Getting to Know the
World’s Greatest Artists, an informational and anecdotal biography of
the artist written by Mike Venezia. The children also enjoyed the
hilarious and cleverly caricatured read, When Pigasso Met Mootisse,
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