Evenings for Educators is the museum’s monthly teacher development program. Each event features two teachers (one Elementary and one Secondary) who create and implement a lesson plan in their classroom. Attendees get a copy of that lesson plan in their folders the night of the program and also have the chance to ask the Museum Teachers questions. Each lesson references artwork from the museum’s permanent collection, ties into the theme of the program and incorporates visual art with another discipline. Please enjoy this follow up from the Elementary lesson plan by Museum Teacher Tracy Alley.

September 21st, 2017 Museum Teacher: Tracy Alley

“Evenings for Educators” has been an enriching part of my teaching for over a decade. As a gifted resource room teacher, art and music are important components of my interdisciplinary units of study. I have found  “Evenings for Educators” at the Cincinnati Art Museum to be inspiring and helpful as I try to teach my students to be creative thinkers, in particular working on the areas of fluency (ability to produce a number of ideas), elaboration (extend ideas), flexibility (number of different perspectives), and originality (new or novel idea). I have engaged my students in lessons that I would have never created if it were not for the fantastic workshops led by instructors and guest speakers at “Evenings for Educators.”

The lesson I created for Ana England’s exhibit titled Kinship related to our third grade biography study of Leonardo da Vinci. Leonardo believed you could learn a great deal by observing your natural surroundings. He was fascinated with flying birds, flowing water, and falling leaves. Ana England and Leonardo da Vinci have a connection or kinship. In the end, students gathered ideas from our nature walks and used materials like clay (connection to earth), wire (inspired by Ana England), and found objects to create unique sculptures coupled with haikus (Japanese form of poetry inspired by nature). The third graders enjoyed every minute of this lesson!