Plant People

Today’s Mindful Art lesson was amazing!

A student asked if I would make an art lesson drawing mushroom people. Mushroom people? Okay – so I thought about it for a bit and started to think about Narcissus and Daphne and Philemon and Bacius – the Greeks have a lot of examples of people transforming into plants – so there we went. We had a lesson – I gave the students a few Greek myths, some Native American myths about horticulture, and lots of popular culture examples – so we got our stories 🙂
Then the students created – but the really thought about themselves, they thought about their feelings, they thought about a lot of things, and they had fun!

It was so simple, but even the littles (TK-2) had excellent questions and awesome images. The students brought out ideas and symbolism that had great depth. I was surprised at how well the middles (3-5) connected to the lesson. They came up with ideas to mix plants to more clearly represent how they felt. The kids came up with plants that expressed their complex natures. Like the girl that told me she had a daisy but made it red and yellow because those colors symbolized how she felt strong, jealous, loyal, and I wish I remembered everything. Another student couldn’t think of what to draw – I talked to him a bit about who he is and how he felt. He is one of those ‘cool’ kids that just never seems unfazed – just even natured. We saw that bonsai stood for harmony and balance – I commented on his cool, level-headed nature and he drew an amazing bonsai – being seen and recognizing his own strength changed his face and it was so cool to see him make such a beautiful image for himself. The bigs (5-8) connected on a more mature level. They brought their own knowledge of mythology and knowledge in general and the conversations had that much more depth. We ended up going a bit over on our time and the kids included written descriptions of their artwork and the ideas that brough the creation to being. I didn’t take any pictures (well only two at the end of the day) because it was a wonderful time to be in the moment. It gave me so much joy – such a boost for my soul to talk to all the kids about what they made. I was surprised to learn how a few of them saw themselves and why – I can’t wait to do this again!