| My Texas friend and colleague, Stefanie Schropp, is a Gifted, Talented, and Enrichment Coordinator (PreK-8th) and she’s been a generous contributor to this blog. In this post, she shares a cross-curricular mini-unit that is perfect for October, and the culmination is a media project that your students will love. Her previous posts can be found HERE and HERE. |
by Stefanie Schropp
Last year, my fourth-grade students and I embarked on an extraordinary learning journey that combined mystery, art, technology, and emotions as we worked through engaging activities centered around Edvard Munch’s iconic painting, The Scream. This adventure culminated in some enigmatic imagery enhanced by augmented reality!
INTRODUCTORY ACTIVITIES
The Escape Room Challenge
To kick off our journey, my students were introduced to The Scream through this escape room activity. The immersive experience allowed them to learn about the painting’s history and significance while solving puzzles and unlocking clues. The excitement and teamwork set the stage for deeper artwork exploration. If you’re short on time, you can share the video below or use some of the free resources here to familiarize students with Munch and his most famous painting.
Studying “The Scream”
Once my students’ curiosity was piqued, we delved into a closer examination of The Scream. They observed elements of the painting, noting its vivid colors, swirling lines, and the haunting expression of the central figure. Using this lesson from Byrdseed TV, students wrote sensory poems that captured the emotions and atmosphere of the painting.
Exploring Fears and Exasperations
Inspired by Terri Eichholz’s “How to Have a Screaming Great Time,” I guided students in some self-reflection. They brainstormed things that “make them scream” and shared their fears. Through guided discussions, we dug deeper into the underlying causes of their fears and feelings of exasperation. This reflective activity encouraged my students to confront and articulate their emotions, fostering a growth mindset and emotional intelligence.
PART ONE
Taking Over “The Scream”
For the first part of the culminating project, my students “took over” Munch’s masterpiece by replacing the central figure with a ghostlike GIF of themselves acting out their biggest fear. Tricia Fuglestad shared step-by-step directions for creating GIFs in her “Haunted Masterpieces” blog post HERE.
CREATING THE VISUAL
- Create a new Google Slides presentation and make this figure-less version of The Scream as the background (courtesy of Mrs. Fuglestad).
- Create video and GIF. Quick Note: If you don’t want to use a traditional green screen, you can create a background-less GIF using the background remover tools available in Canva or Unscreen.com. Green screen apps like this one allow you to change the transparency of the video to appear “ghost-like.” You can also change the transparency of a GIF once it is uploaded to Canva.
- Upload GIF: Upload the animated “ghostly” GIF into a Google Slides presentation, placing it where the original figure would be.
Students then used the Pixar story structure as a guide to craft narratives that explained the meaning behind their fears, adding depth and context to their visual representations. They recorded their narratives and added them to their presentations.
ADDING the AUDIO
- Record Story: Using Vocaroo, record the Pixar story structure narration.
- Upload Audio: Upload the recording to the Google Slide, changing the audio playback settings to start playing automatically and making sure to loop the audio.
The Mystery of Stolen Art
A fascinating story led to even more intrigue. We learned about the theft of thirteen masterpieces from the Isabella Gardner Art Museum in 1990, a real-life mystery yet to be solved. Even more fascinating to my students was “Hacking the Heist,” a project based on that heist. My students were captivated by this wonder of technology- the use of augmented reality to virtually “restore” the stolen art to the empty frames on the wall.
PART TWO:
Stolen Art Project
So, we were inspired to enhance the culminating project. Students used augmented reality to create their own “stolen” art, adding one final element to their ghostly versions of The Scream.
The Google Slide presentations (GIF + audio) were published to the web, each linked to a QR code. A printout of the QR code was then glued to an empty picture frame.
These were displayed so that visitors could scan the QR codes to see the “stolen Screams” magically restored to their frames.
CREATING the FINAL PROJECT
- Publish to Web: Publish the Google Slides presentation to the web.
- Create a QR Code: Generate a QR code for the published link.
- Decorate Frame: Add the QR code to an empty frame and decorate it creatively.
This mini-unit exemplified the spirit of our universal theme “Masters and Mysteries” and was a hit with my students. It’s also one of my favorites! Put on display at our school, the final project allowed my students to showcase their creativity and technical skills and engage their audience uniquely and interactively.
| Join us in the Facebook group where we love to share our experiences and ideas for combining resources in meaningful ways! We will probably be talking about this one! |