Art: Week of March 1, 2011

Sculptural Headdress:

          When I first heard that we were going to get to make our own headdresses, I got really excited.  Most days, I usually wear an accessory (flower or headband) in my hair for fun, but I learned that in some cultures people wear headdresses for different purposes, such as religion.  I love adding things to my hair, so it was fun being able to create my own headdress.  In class, we read two Cinderella Stories, Cinderella and the Rough Faced Girl.  The two stories were related to one another, but they also had many differences.  The assignment was to create a headdress representing or symbolizing a Cinderella story.  

          There are many different ways to make a headdress and I really liked how no one in the class had 2 of the same headdresses, in fact every student had a different idea.  From the very beginning I knew that I wanted to make my head dress out of different colors of tissue paper.  I really liked how we were able to use a variety of supplies and colors for our headdresses.  We were not limited to just a few options.  When we first started my eyes were immediately drawn to the bright yellow, green, and purple tissue paper.  These colors contrast one another and I thought that all three of them would look great together.  My plan was to make a crown that symbolizes Cinderella's crown and allow the jewels of the crown to be symbolic of the evil stepsisters vs. Cinderella.  The green diamond jewels symbolized the evil step sisters and the purple jewels symbolized Cinderella and all of her beauty. 
          This project was really fun and it would most definitely be beneficial in a 2nd Grade classroom.  There are many similar features in different fairy tales and I think that it would be fun if students made a headdress that had the similarities on the front and the differences on the back.  Making a Venn Diagram before hand would be very beneficial to them.   They will not only have fun making the headdress, but they will be learning how to find similarities and differences between 2 stories.

CA Standards:  

Grade 2:  Integration of Knowledge and Ideas #9

Compare and contrast two or more versions of 

the same story (e.g., Cinderella stories) by 

different authors or from different cultures. 

- As a class we really concentrated on this element of the standards and in fact, we made a Venn Diagram to help us distinguish the differences and similarities between the two Cinderella Stories.