Tried It Tuesday: Projects by Jen

I'm linking up today with Holly from Fourth Grade Flipper for Tried It Tuesday! 

 

Projects by Jen is an amazing website where Jen compiles a list of projects (about seven a year) that she hosts for grade levels K-5.  They are projects that work across the curriculum, get kids to investigate and think and let them learn about other students from around the country.  Now this is sort of new, sort of not for me.  Two years ago my students and I did the Holiday Card Exchange project and they LOVED it!

This year I am TRYING a different project: Picture It 2013.  24 different classrooms across America each have a section of one piece of art.  This year's artist is Piet Mondrian.  You might recognize some of his paintings from his blue, red, yellow, black and white geometrical squares.

Once we were put into a specific group, Jen sent all of us an email with the art work in a PDF, what section your class was to color, an informational card to fill out about your class and the addresses of all the other teachers in your group.  From there my students and I researched (thanks to the websites Jen gives you to get you started) Piet Mondrian and then colored our section!  It was very interesting to see how each student colored the same section and who made designs and who colored a solid color.  In Mondrian fashion, they were only allowed to use red, yellow, blue, black and white crayons.

We started to receive the other sections in the mail and we wanted to post their informational cards that came with them on our map.  Below you will see what it looked like today but as I was leaving we got six more sections in the mail!  The kids absolutely love getting mail and finding out about other schools around the country!  We didn't have enough room in our classroom so we moved out into the hallway, lol.

Here is a closer view of the artwork.  I put up a black and white template and as we received the other sections we just placed those over them.  We put up a map of the US and added stickers and string to connect the informational card to their state.  Now the kids can see how many different schools across American are learning about the same topic they are :o)

This is without a doubt a project I would recommend to anyone else, no matter the grade level.  If you've never checked out her website, you should definitely head on over to Projects by Jen!  Don't forget to link up with Holly for Tried It Tuesday as well!