Strathcona, Adelaide Hoodless Win Telling Tales Awards
Students at two HWDSB schools won awards at the Telling Tales Festival on Sept. 28 by using art and imagination to explore the world created by a children’s book author.
At Telling Tales, the Explore Your World School Contest had three steps: schools chose an author, illustrator, book, theme or style from the 2016 Telling Tales Reading list; they selected a medium with which they would explore; and they they explained how their group exploration connected to their book.
For ideas, organizers suggested models, photos, poems and more.
At Strathcona elementary, which won first place, the Grade 2/3 SAGE class taught by Sarah Martin chose The Imaginary Garden. The book is about a girl and her grandpa who redesign the man’s small and windy balcony, using paint to make it come alive. It reveals the power of art to enrich our lives.
The students were interested in the theme of making the world a nicer place – and decided the theme for their art would be “Making the world more beautiful.”
One student suggested they start with an ugly picture and put “beautiful things on top to show that we can make these spaces more beautiful,” Martin explained. On a grey background, each student drew a picture of something beautiful, transforming the scene with bright colours like those in the book’s illustrations.
The class loved the growth mindset that the characters Poppa and Theo showed in the story. Instead of being sad about the state of the balcony, the pair worked hard to make it something beautiful.
Another winner in the Telling Tales Challenge, the Grade 1 students in Deandra Pierroz’ class at Adelaide Hoodless elementary explored the book Fox and Squirrel. They finished third in this year’s contest.
The book is about two friends who discover that, although they are different, they have much in common. Watercolour illustrations bring to life this story of friendship and acceptance.
“We read Fox and Squirrel as a Grade 1 class,” explained Pierroz. “We explored our own world and each other’s world to find things we had in common, and things that were different between us.”
Together, the class enjoyed some great classroom discussions about how having different interests, lifestyles, cultures and traditions can be a great thing between friends.
Updated on Wednesday, October 05, 2016.