Art Unites the World

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The name of our project is Art Unites the World. It is an international project in which 9 teachers and 150 students from 6 countries, including Türkiye, participated. Our students are between the ages of 4-8. The theme of our project is culture and art. Our aim is to enable students to get to know their own culture and different cultures and arts.

We strive for our students to understand that there are different cultures in the world, that each culture has a different art and that art and culture have a common feature. We worked on four main themes: drawing, literature, dance and music. We came together with mixed national teams in each section and made a plan. We also created an evaluation and a common product at the end of each chapter.

Culture and Drawing

In terms of design, mixed-country teams (Turkish and Romanian partners) came together and prepared a work plan. Each teacher presented his student with a picture of his country. We introduced the art of marbling to students. Together with the students, we prepared special water for the art of marbling. Students put paint into the containers we put water in and shaped them. Painting in water was an interesting experience for my students.

We talked to the children to evaluate the drawing section. We photographed their work and made an online puzzle with “jigsawplanet”. They presented their work online to project partners. At the end of the episode, we created a picture with all partners using artificial intelligence. The character in this picture became the mascot of our project.

Culture and Literature

In the literature department, a team from mixed countries (Estonia, Lithuania and North Macedonia) came together and prepared a work plan. Since our students did not know the literary characters, a study was conducted on them. A blockposter about Karagöz-Hacivat, one of the important names of Turkish art, was printed. My students colored and cut the poster. But they didn’t put the pieces together.

Then they were divided into 2 groups in the school yard. Every part of the Karagöz-Hacivat character was hidden somewhere in the school. They were asked to find the pieces and put them together through group work. The group that combined the character came first. Then they revived the Karagöz-Hacivat play they had learned before.

At the end of the section, an e-book study was prepared in which all partners participated. At the end of the chapter evaluation, the children were asked the following question: “Which words do we use most in this chapter?”. We added the children’s answers to Answergarden. At the end of the work, they contacted our partners over the internet and presented the animations of Nasreddin Hodja and Karagöz-Hacivat to their friends abroad.

Culture and Music

Partners of the Latvian and Turkish mixed-country teams met to prepare the plan for the music section. Our students planned to learn cultural music and spend time in nature. We increased children’s awareness of our cultural music. Together with their families, they turned the sticks and stones they collected from nature into musical instruments. They kept the rhythm of the songs with homemade rhythm sticks and painted stones. They sang songs of our culture to their friends in Romania. At the end of the show, we created a common song of each country’s cultural music community.

Culture and Dance

Mixed-country teams came together for the dance portion. Partners from Türkiye, North Macedonia and Lithuania prepared a work plan for the dance department. The aim of the program was for children to learn the dances of their friends from different countries and experience cultural integration. Every partner suited each other. Teachers guided their students in learning the cultural dances of their country.

At the end of the project, a cartoon including the project mascot was created as the final product. Students drew a picture of the cartoon.

Evaluation

The project was evaluated and it was seen that the students had fun and learned in the project. Parents said that it was a good project for their children to get to know their own culture and arts in the first grade. The final evaluation of the project by the project partners was evaluated as a beautiful collaboration, excellent teamwork and excellent friendship.

 

 

 

About the author

Rukiye Akyol is a preschool teacher in Hatay Province, which is the southernmost part of Türkiye. He is a teacher trying to help his students, who experienced the big earthquake with the projects he created.

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