Our Mandalas
The Starfish class’ first art activity
for the year was the creation of Friendship Mandalas.
A mandala is a mystic symbol of the
universe. It is a circle enclosed in a square. Our art teacher Jo
wanted us to create a symbol of our universe and also work as a collaborative
group.
Firstly Jo explained how the activity
was to run. She showed us how to draw on the cardboard circles with
pastels and chalk. Jo also showed
us examples of Mandalas.
Next Jo put us in groups of four and
handed one black circle to each person. She then put on a relaxing
CD and we began by drawing a symbol in the centre of the cardboard.
After five minutes of silent creating we passed our Mandalas around
the group one person to the left and then they continued our design.
We repeated this rotation two more times until each group member had
contributed to the design.
The end product of this lesson looked great. Most
people worked really well together but some became a little concerned
about what was happening to ‘their’ work.
We feel that the activity was rather successful
as we all produced beautiful artworks in co-operative groups.