What a Wonderful World Mural

Well, this blog post has been a long time coming, as we've been working on this What a Wonderful World mural since the start of the school year! I'm excited to say that it's complete and it's up (when it wants to stay up, sigh). You can take a tour of the mural and learn all about who made what and what lessons were involved in this video right here! 

We've done SO MANY school-wide collaboratives at my school. I absolutely love them. They are also my favorite way to start the school year. I'm working on creating another blog post of all our collaboratives compiled in one post...but until then, check out the video for details and THIS podcast episode on how you can use song as a collaborative inspiration!

This mural makes me so happy and I thought it was such an appropriate song for this school year. I've gotten so much of a wonderful response from the faculty and staff (and kids!) that I'm thrilled. I mean, doing a collab like this is so much work. Especially when it comes time to assemble and hang the beast!

In the podcast episode, I mentioned the painted party my students did to create the background papers. Here is the blog post all about that! 

And here's the video if you'd like to see us in action:

One of the many reasons I like to start my school year with a collaborative is because it means we are all pretty much working with the same art supplies. In this case, we were working with bingo daubers and tempera paint...a lot!

Some of the lessons were tired and true like the first grade flowers you see at the start of this blog post. Some were new like the funny face clouds by kindergarten!

Our next mural is going to be based on our school song! I'm so glad we have a school song, it's so sweet and our students love to sing it. I think it will be perfect and hope to create a permanent display. 

I got many requests from teachers for future songs....but next time I think I'd like to go with a song that the kids really know and love. 

Adding the component of also learning the song in sign language was very fun and a great way to connect with our deaf friends. We have fabulous ASL teachers in our school who helped us learn the song. 

Of course learning a song in a different language would be amazing too! The kids loved creating these painted plates with greetings in different languages for the mural. This was an easy early finisher activity for my students as they worked thru their paintings. 

I know I'm totally oversharing in this post but I just love this mural so much! Funny face raindrops by second grade. 

Collage and stitched houses by first!

Second grade read It's Okay to be Different by Todd Parr as their inspiration for their contribution to the mural. 

Third grade created these warm color flowers!

And I got to put it all together. Lucky me! It's okay, I love it so much and can't wait to create another! You'll have to let me know if you tackle a project like this and how it goes.

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