"Number" Art

Today, I had the kinder gardeners, the first graders, and the second graders.  

I asked the students to choose their favorite number. Write it on a large piece of construction paper and then incorporate their chosen number into a picture. Giving them a challenge and making them be creative was the purpose of this project. What they ended up creating also showed me a lot. For example, one student worked with the number seven. He actually turned the number seven into the side of a leaning house. While another used the number seven and imagined it as a slide, He used things that he knows like playgrounds and slides and saw the same shape. Also I had another student of mine changed the number three into letters in the alphabet such as “B”. On the other side of this project I had a student, a kindergartener who actually bent the rules a little.  When asked to use numbers, he decided to make judges’ score cards. He approached me with excitement every time he created another giant card. What I enjoyed the most is how hard these kids worked. These students were illustrating a lot in their images and were proud of their end results. Their active imagination (which is the method of assimilation of unconscious contents through their experimentation as fantasies in the wakeful state) according to Jung was being tapped into. They were making a connection between the shape of the number and what they are familiar with. An example is mentioned above: the girl who turned the seven into a slide or the boy who turned the seven into the side of a house. Overall, the project was successful. The only thing that was left to do was talk them into taking their art home ( many wanted to give it to me as a gift). However, I feel it’s important to also share their art work with their family.

-          So next time you look around, see what numbers you see in your world!