Visiting the Art Museum

The field trip to the art museum allowed students to gain an important opportunity to add depth to their Unit of Inquiry study on cultures. Students were asked to recount and reflect on what they experienced. What was impressive was the empathy shown by second graders with statements like:  

• “I can imagine what life was like for people a long time ago, it looks more difficult than how we live today" - A
• “When I looked at the similarities and differences of my culture and the culture in the painting, I tried to imagine what those people were thinking," - P
• “I think people from different cultures can have different thoughts about the same thing," - T

We try and integrate across subjects and have specialists involved in the unit of inquiry. The art teacher joined us on the field trip. Prior to the trip, our team planned with the art teacher and she did a pre-visit to the museum and chose several art pieces that would tie into our unit. 

School to home connections are important for families to further the discussions in class. Here were the questions that I sent to my families to ask their children: Which was your favourite painting and why? What information did the paintings give you about Vietnamese culture? What is the SAME as your culture? What is DIFFERENT to your culture?