It's a Twister! A Twister!

This year's play by our high school drama department was The Wizard of Oz. As an art department, we set up a mini art show correlating to the play. I decided I wanted to take on the tornado aspect of the story, and my what a task it was.



First phase of construction: Assembling a frame with chicken coop wire and wrapping with newspaper.

I didn't realize to take pictures until it was about half way covered.

This lovely student is about 5' 5" (if not taller), so you can see how tall I was planning on making this thing because the ceilings towards the auditorium are higher than the ceiling in my classroom.

The tornado suspending from the ceiling.

With the artwork attached.

Other than myself creating the tornado with some student help, I wasn't sure of how to actually incorporate student artwork associating with the tornado. I was originally planning on doing a house and architecture study, having each student draw their house.

I was given the idea of asking the students to think of how a tornado would alter their life. They were asked to think of how their lives may be changed, really making them appreciate what they may take for granted. It was a little higher level thinking for my 6th graders, and I wanted them to think not so literal, ie. "Ill miss my clothes." Because symbolism was such a prominent theme in The Wizard of Oz, each student was to think of a symbol that relates to their story. Their depictions didn't have to be anything elaborate, just simple and correlating to their idea. Here are some examples:

Again, it was way over their head what I was trying to "get out of them" and because this was the first time we ever put up an art show that goes along with the theme of our school play, the students didn't really get what the point of the project was. I'd have to admit, the creation of the tornado and watching it grow every day was a bigger hit.

Some fun and very large ruby red slippers our other elementary art teacher made with her 4th graders.