I Think, I Create, I Innovate:Art in Math

Funded Jul 30, 2018

I cannot begin to thank you enough for your generous donation to my project, "I Think, I Create, I Innovate: Art in Math! I teach three ninety minute blocks with twenty five students in each. I also have these same students for math enrichment. While computer programs are helpful to practice skills, I wanted my students to have hands-on practice with math concepts.

This is a little insight into our classroom and how the materials have been extremely useful. In August and September I introduced the artist Mondrian to my students as they were learning about area and surface area. Students used graph paper, rulers, colored pencils to create rectangular shapes to find the area. After their initial project of finding area using a grid the students then moved onto finding area of shapes without a grid. They then painted their Mondrian inspired designs on art paper using paint pens.

In late September and October students were introduced to street artist Thank You X who uses cubes in his artwork. The math lesson they were working on was finding the volume of square and rectangular prisms. They then created their own sixth grade mural using cubes. Currently we are working on identifying the parts of a circle and finding circumference and area of a circle. Students used compasses to create their circles and then identify its parts with circumference and area. They then learned how to use watercolors by coloring the circles.

In the words of some of my students, "Thank you Donors for helping us with supplies. You helped us incorporate art in math." Chris P. "This helped me understand cubes better." Kaley E. "With art in math I am able to learn about artist that I never knew existed." Adelyn B. "Art in math has helped me learn to use a ruler correctly." Molly F.

Again thank you so very much. I know that using art in math will have a great impact on my sixth graders.”

With gratitude,

Mrs. Olinde