Introduction to this Stone Soup Art Activity For the artist, every workplace is a separate world with its own unique environment of light, sound, smell, and activity, and each picture is a story in line, shape, and maybe color that tells about that special place. The seven-year-old artist from Sri Lanka who painted the picture on the front cover did an excellent job of telling the story of a unique world she has seen, but that we may never see — the world of a tea plantation. Look at how she creates her picture world. She shows us the geography: the hills surrounding the plantation. She shows us the weather: clouds over the hills and a blue sky above. She shows us how the tea plants are arranged in rows, and she shows us the building that is a part of every tea plantation, the building where the tea leaves are sorted, fermented, and prepared for shipping to the world’s tea drinkers. In the middle of this scene she shows us a woman picking tea. She appears to be a young woman and has long hair. She is wearing a blue blouse, a red polka-dotted dress called a sort, and silver bracelets on both wrists. On her back she carries a large basket filled with tea leaves. The basket is undoubtedly heavy and the work is hard. Project 1: Working Outdoors Make a picture of someone working outdoors. You might make a picture of a gardener, a coach for soccer or baseball, someone building a building or working on a road, or a telephone repair crew. Sometimes you may work outdoors too, for instance, if you rake leaves, clear snow, or mow lawns. Through your picture tell as complete a story of the workplace as possible. Tell your story so that someone from another country who doesn’t know anything about the place you live, or about the people who work there, will understand what you have seen. Remember to show what type of clothing the workers are wearing, and, if they are using tools, include them in your picture. Project 2: Working Indoors Make a picture of someone working indoors. That might be someone in an office, or a store, at your school, or in a factory. Or it might be a picture of you or one of your parents working around the house. The interior of a building has a very different feel from a place outside. Instead of the sky, there is a ceiling. Instead of the sun, there are electric lights. Instead of trees and plants growing in the ground, there are (maybe) plants in pots. As with your outdoor picture, remember to show what the people look like, what type of clothes they are wearing, and what tools they use, if any, at their job. Harvesting Tea, by Achinda Siriwardena, age 7, Sri Lanka
Art activity
Writing and Art Activity: illustrate your own story, with “The Adventures of Pumpkin and Seegartus” by Nicole Schmidt, 9
Introduction to this Stone Soup Writing and Art Activity “The Adventures of Pumpkin and Seegartus” is about a friendship between two animals–a pony, Pumpkin, and a cat, Seegartus–both favorite pets of Mary. The author, Nicole Schmidt, begins her story with the birth of Pumpkin and his capture from a herd of semi-wild horses, and she ends it with an adventure that clearly establishes the depth of Pumpkin and Seegartus’ friendship for each other. “The Adventures of Pumpkin and Seegartus” is illustrated by the author, and the original is bound into a book. The pictures and the text are a unit; together they tell the story. It is always exciting to see a work illustrated by the author. Who better knows the characters and their lives than the author? And what better time to make illustrations for your story than at the time of creation, when the characters and their lives are freshest in your mind? Project: Write and Illustrate a Story Based on Something That Has Happened in Your Own Life You could write about a pet, about a vacation, about your school year, about camp, about a brother or sister, or about anything. Like the author of “The Adventures of Pumpkin and Seegartus,” you will want to give your work a clear beginning and end. Tell your story in both words and drawings. Your word picture and your drawing picture should complement each other. The pictures might, in fact, fill in information that is lacking in the text and make your story more complete. For instance, in words you might say something very general about a character. It might be through the illustration that you more fully show what the character looks like and how he or she dresses. The Adventures of Pumpkin and Seegartus By Nicole Schmidt, 9, West Simsbury, Connecticut Illustrated by the author From the March/April 1985 issue of Stone Soup Early one morning in the Ozarks of Missouri, on May 1, 1965, a Shetland pony was born in an almost wild herd of ponies that were running on a cattle farm. The mother’s name was Jenny and the father stallion’s name was Prince. No one was around. He was just born under a crabapple tree. (It was a hard day for the mother and foal because the curious ponies in the herd kept coming up and trying to sniff the new member.) Later that day, they slowly made their way back to the rest of the herd of Shetlands. As the herd grazed, they covered a great distance. Finally, they came to a gate that had been accidentally left open and passed through it to the back pasture of the next farm. Pretty soon they had made their way up to the barnyard. A little girl came out of the farmhouse and spotted the colt running by its mother’s side. The little girl, whose name was Mary, ran back into the house and said, “Ma, you promised me a pony. You did, you did!” In a soft voice, Ma said, “What pony, Darling?” “The pony that’s outside. A new one, running by its mother’s side.” “It must have been born in the night,” said Ma. “I’ll take a look outside. Oh, those ponies are Mr. Blacker’s, the man who lives on the north side of town. I’ll ask him if he wants to sell it. I’ll ask the neighbors down the road how to get in touch with him. Meanwhile, stay away from them,” the mother warned, as she started down the road to the neighbors’. “The stallion might attack you. They’re wild and we don’t know what they might do.” The mother walked down the road to the neighbors’. The ponies still ran and ate grass. The mother came back and said, “Mr. Blacker said he didn’t know that a pony was born, but we may have him if we can catch him. That’s why our neighbor came with his lasso.” The neighbor went outdoors and whisked his lasso around and around. It took him four or five tries to get them. The neighbor was the biggest man Mary had ever seen. He and his children led the mother and colt into the smaller pasture. The colt and its mother would have to stay there, separated from the rest of the herd, until the colt was old enough to be weaned. Finally, the day came in late summer when the mother could leave her colt. Mary named the colt Pumpkin because his coat was a lovely pumpkin orange. Chapter Two Mary’s father said, “I think we should put the colt in the empty stallion stall tonight because this is the first night the mother and colt are separated, and besides, it looks like it’s going to rain tonight.” Mary and her father put the colt in the stall and tended the rest of the animals. Mary and her father went back to the house. It started raining and big winds came up, so big that the trees and all things were blowing around. Father said, “It’s a tornado! We must all go to the cellar quickly!” Just as they were running to the stairs, the windows of the front side of the house blew in. The tornado had passed before they had reached the cellar. They went outside to see what damage had been done. A big tree had been blown over right in front of their house. All the plums had been blown off the plum tree. Trees had fallen over on top of the house and all the apple trees in the orchard had blown over. The board fence around the pasture had blown over, too. They looked at the barn. It had blown right in. All of the family ran over to it. The stallion’s stall didn’t blow in because it was built so strong. Pumpkin was scared but all right. They had to use a crowbar to open the stall door. Chapter Three The colt had wonderful days on
Time Is Short: a meditation on teaching art
Perhaps it’s a vestige of the agricultural heritage here in the Grand Valley in western Colorado, but our school children are released for the summer in mid-May. Growing up in California, we went from Labor Day to Memorial Day, at least. Beginning of September to end of May, or early June. Here, it’s been tradition to let them out in May to help on the farms and ranches. Since January I’ve been squeezing in days that I can work with my fifth graders at one of the school district’s most rural elementary schools. Set literally between cow and horse pastures, our school is comprised of an interesting mix of ranch families, folks who bought cheap land and built a big house, and folks who pretty nearly live off the grid even though it’s not really their choice. Our little school (300 students more or less) hunkers down between a stretch of a highway that leads into the mountains and to the backcountry of Utah, and horse and cow pastures. When I drive to work, I get into my car in my neighborhood of mature trees and cozy cottage houses stretched between a major medical center complex and a university campus. I emerge 30 minutes later in the parking lot of the school, which seems like an extension of the surrounding fields. There is always a meadowlark that trills when I get out of the car. This transition always reminds me of who my kids are, and allows me to adjust my head before I walk in. Earlier this year while my students were working on the raw clay, rolling out slabs to work with, busy with the kinetic tasks of modeling and shaping images, they were talking. I don’t subscribe to silence while artists are at work. My rules are simple. Keep it clean and keep it nice. No dissing ANYONE, even yourself. That said, it is highly fascinating to listen to the conversations that occur when kids have their hands in wet clay, or are focused on painting glaze (which doesn’t behave like any kind of paint they’ve ever used, and thus gives them an opportunity for problem solving). So one young man says to another, “I can’t believe they won’t let us wear our work boots to school anymore. They said we’ll track feces all over” (said with an audible eye roll). Probably not a comment you’d hear in your average school setting. Tomorrow I will fire the last batch of clay tiles. Last week the students painted on the glazes they want, making decisions that will be permanent, but will not ever be “wrong.” One child decided to mix two colors of glaze to get a different brown than I had available. When glaze goes on, it is chalky and a completely different color than it will turn out when it’s been fired. The student asked me how much to use, and I told her I had no clue. Baffled looks. I’m the art teacher, right? But I don’t know how it will turn out. So many possibilities. So I told her to just do what seemed right, and we’d see how it looks. She said “It’s okay, it’ll work”. Bam. Yes. In the past few weeks I’ve been fitting work on the tiles between standardized testing and regular classwork these children need to be ready for middle school. They are tired, grumpy, stressed. Some of them are SOOOO ready to be in middle school, but some are really grieving for their loss. One girl just wants to stay with her “favorite teacher of all time.” Another is hoping her parents will agree to homeschool her so she doesn’t have to see “all those girls running around with tank tops on.” She goes back to painting glaze. “Can I use this line painter to make dots?” I ask her what she thinks. She tries it out, and gleefully paints dots on her ladybug. Another student uses this new tool to fill in the depressions where she has pressed letter stamps into the clay. They share it around, show each other how to hold it and squeeze the bottle just enough. Tactile. Small motor skills. Learning through teaching. Problem solving (with no set answer). Predicting results. Flexible thinking. Tolerance. Self-critique. Cooperation. Group work. I recently read an article about how visiting a museum can make young people measurably more tolerant and kinder. Plus, they actually remembered what they learned in discussion groups about the pieces they saw. Combine visual with kinetic with oral and the experience implants itself in a young brain. A pattern is set, an indentation on the smooth surface of their memories, which will receive information again and again over their lives, and it will fit into this indentation, and be familiar. Our new Education Secretary, John B. King, Jr., has expressed concern that the testing models now are taking up instructional time, and have squeezed out science, social studies, art and music in the race to improve English and math skills. He has proposed that perhaps different models could be used to measure students’ abilities, rather than “low-level bubble tests” such as essays and research projects, which would, one would hope, be assessed by the teachers. This is a big, fat “NO, REALLY?” for me. With the testing load teachers have now, especially in states where Common Core has been interpreted to mean that test scores determine teacher pay, the result is that teachers are not given the respect of their education and professionalism to determine how and when and how much to teach which subjects in order to best serve their students’ needs. Weren’t we there, with teachers assigning essays and projects to gauge student work, before we got so bogged down with tests? Please let this new acronym ESSA (Every Student Succeeds Act) be code for “give the respect of professionalism back to the teachers” and not “here are some more hoops to jump through”. Time and respect. A few
