Hurst Hills Elementary fourth graders learned about collaborative murals and portraiture at the same time, with stacked box mural portraits. Each group of students was given a boxes and one section of a larger painting. The students had to mix paints to make the colors that they needed for their box, as most of the colors couldn't come straight out of a bottle.
At the end of each class, we would stack the boxes again to make the mural. We would have discussions as to how to improve sections. I heard things like, "Who made this dark blue? We had trouble with that. Can you help us to make that color next time?" "We need to work on that background color." The collaboration was fantastic.
Students were also very proud when the mural was set up for all of the voters to see, when they came to vote in the November election.
