art

Amazing maps

The website FarandWid e offers blogs maps on a wide variety of topics. Although the website is targeting US citizens who wish to travel, there are interesting topics that may be used by curious person. Particularly interesting are the many sets of maps available: geographical, social, political, historic, current social issues etc.

100 Amazing World Maps

Maps that changed the world

Recently a set of 75 maps were published with data on European countries that may be of interest when travelling. Most maps show when the data were gathered, though with some maps this information is missing. Though this can be a good exercise for students to look at data and information on the web critically.

Maps that show Europe in a new light

Wrong Historical Maps

Two examples of Maps that made us laugh and could be inspiration for students to search for or make their own maps.

See our other blogs on Maps for example: Critical on Maps and Maps of the World

Make paper boxes using Origami

Right now many people spend much more time at home. A good time to sit and make some nice boxes for gifts, small items such as jewelry, or for cookies you have made.

There are many examples on YouTube of slightly different techniques and results. Here just one example.

Link to a little more complicated closed box.

You do not have to think about school work when making such boxes, but for those who wish to see the mathematics there are many concepts that are being used and applied (division, fractions, angles, proportions, measurement, square etc.)

If you wish to make it a real challenge. Try to make a box out of one piece of paper where three ping-pong balls, or three golf balls, fit snugly. (It does not have to be a rectangular shape).

DaVinci Kindergarten

DaVinci Kindergarten is a pilot project in which we design, develop and try-out inquiry-based activities for children in the age 4-8. We have worked with children age 4-5 at two kindergartens in Norway. The activities focus on concepts from science, and technology and foster mathematical thinking.

We present some of the activities that have been developped. Contact us if you wish a complete description of the activity.

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Show-box– sight lines and mirroring.
How big is the panther? – measuring, human-based measuring units e.g. foot, thumb(=duym/inch), span (=fathom), step.
How do you get the light on? – electricity, battery, light, lightbulb, lamp, electrical wire, curcuit.
What weighs most/least? – experimenting with balance scales and different materials with the same volume and different weight.
Discover more about your toys. What kind of materials are they made of? – Categorise, recognise, examine the different materials and discover their characteristics.
Bee-bot – programming a robot.

How big is the panther?

Another activity for children age 4-8. This inquiry-based activity involves measuring up a big animal. The children will draw a big animal in its actual size, but the animal is in another room than where the animal must be drawn. Two children are sent to look at the animal and asked to come back and describe the animal. This process is repeated with the question to find out how big the animal is so that it can be drawn on the large sheet of paper.

Concepts
measuring, measuring units, human based measuring units, measuring tools, categorizing, ordering, serializing, relative size, proportionality, counting, member of the ‘cat’ family.

Vocabulary
size, height, width, big-bigger-biggest, large- larger-largest, small- smaller- smallest, thick, order, position, direction, shape, fur, skin, colour, tail, (girth).

Background
The world for young children is primarily three dimensional. Young kids play with three dimensinal toys. A drawing or a picture is a two dimensional representation of objects from the three dimensional world and therefor more difficult to grasp.

Measuring starts with the use of measuring units that are available. People have used measuring units related to their own body to measure length or height over many centuries e.g. foot, fathom/span, thumb/inch.

Museum of Modern Art

The Museum of Modern Art in New York has several Apps. We present two of them: the Art Lab and the MoMA App. The MoMA website is also worth visiting but less intuitive if you wish to navigate through collections or artists than the MoMA App.

The Art Lab App gives pupils a drawing platform where they can experiment with techniques related to trends in art, or artists. The limitations are a clever way of instruction when making art. The feeling remains that the same tasks will be much more interesting, practical, manual, and creative when performed with the actual materials instead of on a touchscreen. The Art Lab could be used as an introduction to the actual hands-on, dirty work.

The MoMA App provides Collections and Artists and a special Kids section with audio. The kids collection is an interesting selection of works of art which should provoke reactions and emotions with children. The audio clips lead you through the works of art and pose some questions. Yet, it would be much more interesting and instructive to wait with the audio clips and first let the kids observe, react and discuss what they see.

Below some examples of the paintings from the MoMA App. You could show them on a SmartBoard and discuss in class.

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Purchase	Free
Hardware	Art Lab – iPad; MoMA App – iPad + iPhone
Requirements	iOS, (the MoMA website in browser)

Create your own Animation

Every month DiScoro writes about resources that can be used in schools and about inspirational issues. See Services in the Menu for workshops, training etc.

It is quite challenging to create your own animation from skratch, using your own sketches. Yet, this process is much more creative, rewarding and instructive than when you use ready made pictures.

There are many different programs you can use. Below you just find a suggestion of resources in order to create you own animation.

Videos by Richard Williams for introduction as well as for instruction
Paint or any other drawing program to draw the pictures
A GIF animation program such as gifmaker.me

Richard Williams shows how simple and how complex it is to animate the movements of an animal or a person. This requires close observation and analysis of what the animal looks like and how the different body parts move. After this research you start with the actual drawing and the sequencing of the pictures. Test and make the animation with an animation program. The process of fine tuning will make the difference in the end result.

If you wish to publish the animations, use a website, the school’s learning environment, or a blog.

Purchase	Free (all three resources mentioned)
Hardware	PC*
Requirements	Browser for videos

* You can certainly create animations on a tablet. You only need a different drawing program.

Rijksmuseum Amsterdam

Every month DiScoro writes about resources that can be used in schools or about inspirational issues. See Services in the Menu for workshops, training etc.

The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam has many of the world’s finest masterpieces and tells the most exciting stories. Over 8,000 treasures are displayed across 80 exhibition rooms, telling the tale of 800 years of art and history. A journey through time, spanning 1.5 kilometres, runs from the Middle Ages to the present day. The official Rijksmuseum App offers guided tours, and enables you to browse through the Rijksmuseum art works in any particular order. The App is designed for use by visitors to the museum, but can also be used at home or in the classroom. Another option is the museum’s website which gives you access to the collection. If you register, you can even download high quality pictures of the pieces of art.