The fourth and fifth graders learned about Surrealism for this project. I started by showing them how to set up their houses using colored construction paper. These pictures were LARGE.. the size of a posterboard. The individual colored construction papers were 9x12". Each child started with 4 sheets of colored construction paper to set up their house. Then, they flipped through magazines to cut out furniture and items for their houses. After they had found a bunch of furniture, I introduced Surrealism to them through a slide show of art. We discussed concepts such as dislocation (placing things were they don't belong), scale and size changes to create unusual relations and metamorphosis (changing things into something new). They learned about artists such as Magritte, Dali and contemporary artist Sandy Skoglund.
The students had a fantastic time cutting apart magazine imagery and playing with different objects to create an unusual and surreal house.
Some of the detail shots were even more interesting than the entire image as a whole.
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| For example, this dog with a party hat and corn? so fun! |
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| Placing a bear head on top of a man? hilarious! |
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| Some of the students used colored tape to divide up the house into rooms and add stairs or ladders. |
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| This student cut up lots of landscape imagery to make a background. |
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| I love this interesting scene. |
TIPS: When I do this next year, I will request some furniture catalogs.. IKEA catalogs would have been perfect for this. The kids loved to use animal pictures, so I might have requested some animal magazines from families as well.
