In March, sixth grade students from Pinetree Community School brought their classroom lessons to life through a partnership with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s (LACMA) Ancient Civilizations Program.
The partnership included a visit from the museum’s Mobile Education Trailer and a field trip to LACMA.
“My sixth grade teachers that coordinated this,” Principal Deb Stilson said. “This was the second year they did this to bring out the mobile and go down and do the field trip down to L.A.”
The program began on March 20 when the LACMA Ancient World Mobile arrived on the west end of the playground on Pinetree’s campus.
“The mobile unit stays with us long enough for each of the classes to spend a morning on it,” sixth grade teacher Marina Hubbard said. “They focus specifically on virtues of the ancient world and apply it directly to art.”
With videos and lectures, LACMA leaders led the students in a hands-on instructional lesson to learn about different civilizations of the world on the traveling art studio and classroom.
All 84 students were also able to create an artistic tile to reflect what they had learned about the ancient civilizations of Egypt, Southeast Asia and Rome.
A week later, LACMA returned the fired clay tiles to the students before their field trip to the downtown art museum.
On March 31, the students hopped on a charter bus provided by the museum and traveled to LACMA for an all-day tour of the museum.
“They split us into small groups and each group had a docent,” Hubbard said. “We visit all sort of displays dealing with virtues of the ancient world.”
These included artifacts, sculptures and artwork from ancient India, China, Rome and Greece, which are all part of the sixth grade social studies curriculum.
“They’re allowed to take notes, sketch what they see,” Hubbard said. “The docents really encourage them to ask questions and discuss what they’re seeing so it makes it a more interactive experience for the kids.”
Students also completed an educational timeline provided by LACMA before having a picnic lunch in Hancock Park, east of the Lake Pit of the La Brea Tar Pits.
Hubbard said the experience and field trip excited her students and brought their classroom learning to life.
“Every room that we go into their eyes would light up and they would say ‘Oh we learned about that!’” she said. “The Greek statues really stand out for them because they’re life size and they’re marble.”
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