Near the end of April my class began learning all about Haiku poems. At the same time we started learning about Henri Matisse. So, I decided to integrate art & poetry into a project for Mother's Day!
Students were fascinated by how Matisse created his "paper art" by cutting paper without tracing. After studying about his art, the students were excited to try his style. We used the books below when learning about Matisse...great resources!
Since traditional Haiku poetry is about nature, our project started with an outside observation! Students had to create a chart to record nouns, verbs, and adjectives that they saw. Lastly, they drew a sketch just like Matisse would do before cutting.
We learned that Matisse's style for cutting was an "organic" one (mostly cutting as if it was just the outline of an object). We practiced cutting on notebook paper before ever getting to construction paper. I was very impressed with my class and no one even tried to cheat by tracing!!!
Another aspect of Henri Matisse's art was his use of bright colors. The students had fun going "outside the box" when choosing the colors they used. After cutting, students used their shapes to play with the composition of the piece before gluing.
Once the art was finished students had to pick one element of nature to focus their Haiku on. The student above chose to do birds but she could have easily chosen the tree or bird's nest (orange circle).
Students used their observation chart of nouns, verbs, & adjectives to help them in the brainstorm part of writing their poem. They worked in groups to help with inspiration, correct syllabication (lots of clapping), and to keep each other true to the 5, 7, 5 syllable rule of a Haiku.
The students were proud of their work and can't wait to take them home tomorrow!
Happy Mother's Day!!!
