Read out Loud a success

After a months of planning and hours of preparation, success! On Saturday morning, roughly 70 to 80 children and family members created little people and books for the mural. We brought it back to The School add a few more details and shellack it. We will then bring it back the PS 165 and hang it in the entry hall.

So Close!

So we drew an earth and we copied it from a globe, even though it isn't exact, it came out pretty good. We painted the border orange and the main part of the mural purple. Then we traced our hands and decorated them and also decorated letters and cut the hands out with our 1st grade buddies. We painted the earth different shades of blue and green. We're still not sure whether the earth should have sunglasses, regular glasses or no glasses. Some people want sunglasses because they think it will look funny, other's don't because it will cover up hard work, and take away attention from the other part of the mural. - - Jenny

I think we should have a globe with sunglasses because the kids at the school have a big hallway and it's full of nothing (and Ms. Broderick worked there). If we put the globe with the sunglasses we can show it that it's a little bit humorous and makes you chuckle a bit, but it's also about literacy. If someone is having a bad day, they can look at it and be happy. - - Osiris

first meeting with the 5th grade

Here are some ideas from 5A about the structure of our mural:

body: a book, border: children doing literacy activities.
painting around the outside of the mural

we can (help the first graders) paint the background either 1 or 2 colors

we cut out people ahead of time:

we put a planet in the middle, holding a book:

Put the alphabet around the border

attendees can make books or letters in the middle:

maybe the planet (a faceless world) is reading the book to the kids. we could cut out letters and people. Kids could write the names of their favorite books on a piece of paper to put on the mural.

Maybe the books would be a bi-fold. front would be the title and author, inside would be the favorite part. perhaps we could have book cards where kids could write summaries of their stories/biographies/any genre. Concern that the covers may fall off.

PS 165 the permanent home

From Christine at Morningside alliance:
Once completed, the mural will be hanging indoors near the main school entry way where students and parents pass through every day, all day and after school. It’s a very well traveled area! It will be hanging above (kid) eye level in a short, open hallway leading to the “indoor yard” which is a humongous central space at the school and where the event itself is taking place. The indoor yard is also where the mural activity will actually take place. The mural should be horizontally designed for 3-4 feet tall and 10-15 feet long.
From me, right now:
So now we've got the dimensions, come back to read about the planning progress.
AG

Lit fair and last spring's murals

I'm hopeful to meet with Julie, Eliza and Ann on Tuesday afternoon so that we can plan the next chapter of Justice Murals.

I got some more photographs from Junius's collection so I'm posting 'em, thanks Junius!

Justice Murals, the next step

Exciting news! Just last week, I received an email from Christine Petro from the Morningside Alliance. She encountered one of the Murals created by the 4th grade students last year and she loved the idea of a literacy Justice mural.

She is having a literacy fair at PS 165 on November 3rd. We're hopeful to have some student and faculty represetatives from The School at Columbia to lead another justice mural project for the greater community.

Here's the lit fair information:
Name: READ OUT LOUD!

Date: Saturday, November 3, 2007

Time: 11:00 AM – 3:00 PM

Location: PS 165 109th St between Broadway and Amsterdam

Reading age focus: 0 – 12

Activities: workshops for adults, hands-on activities, authors and book signings (we’re also soliciting a huge number of books for distribution)

Involved organizations: The event is being organized by Morningside Area Alliance and Jumpstart, a non-profit early childhood literacy organization. New York Public Library, Bank St College.

Here is class 4b with their mural at the Law School. Tell us what you think.