Now I realize school is over for me, but some of you are in the last couple of weeks of school. I came across this project through a fellow blogger
and fell in love with this activity.
At the time my 8th graders were diving into a Holocaust unit and my exploratory wheel were learning about different Eco-systems. I decided to use this project with their two groups. To be honest this project could be used in any subject. Students could even create a Mandala about themselves.
//A little background on Mandalas\\
A mandala (Sanskrit for “circle”) is a sacred, symbolic diagram, used as a meditational aid in Buddhism and Hinduism. A traditional mandala is a "blueprint" of a temple of the gods, as well as of the entire universe.
While mandalas usually contain lettering or images of Buddhas or deities, yantras are mainly geometrical. "Mandala" and "yantra" are sometimes used interchangeably. Many use the term "mandala" to refer to any circular image or sacred circle.
//more than I ever wanted to know about Mandalas\\
To introduce the lesson I created a PowerPoint on the history of Mandalas. Showed a YouTube video of Monks creating a Mandala with sand as well as gave them examples of student made Mandalas.
Each student was given a circle template and had to come up with six symbols to represent in their mandala. Once they were finished drawing and coloring they had to write a paragraph explaining what each picture represents.
Whenever there is coloring involved in my classroom I tell them they cannot use the color "white" unless what they are drawing is actually white. I find this helps students create more colorful projects.
the mandalas turned out great - I love the background info you gave on them, after doing a term paper on the history of the mandala, I couldn't even bring myself to write anything about them on my blog! And seriously, isn't youtube the best? We were just watching graduation speeches before my kids were asked to write their own grad speeches!
ReplyDeleteI love mandalas, and I love this idea of students making personal mandalas and writing about them. I laughed about the "no white" rule! With my student teaching class, I used to take all the black colored pencils and crayons out of Triller's supplies when we did projects, because otherwise his work would just be a big mess of black!
ReplyDeleteThanks Marci for the fantastic Mandala idea; they would not have turned out this good if it was not for you.
ReplyDeleteAngel I never had any overly black coloring yet only white ones. I think I am going to have students create personal mandalas at the beginning of next year...as a way for them to introduce themselves to one another.