Picture This: "Dream Something Big: The Story of the Watts Towers"

 

Picture This: "Dream Something Big: The Story of the Watts Towers"  

K-5th Grade After-School Story/Craft introducing this self-taught folk artist.

Blurb: Can you imagine working on a art project for 34 years?  A man named Simon Rodia did just that, using cement, broken tiles, shells, and other found items to build towering spires, some almost a hundred feet tall, decorated with mosaic designs.  Come hear his story then create your own mosaic towers from pipe cleaners, magazine clippings, and found objects. 

• World Music playing as kids enter & for craft: The Rough Guide to World Playtime (Simon Rodia lived in a multicultural neighborhood)
• Show book – illustrator used cut paper collages to represent Simon Rodia’s mosaics (like collages but made of bits of broken glass, pottery, china etc.)
• Book mentions “kaleidoscope” – show some if available so kids can look through
• Read book aloud including afterward: height, quantity of materials, real pictures
• Show additional photographs (from internet) of the towers
• Craft: Kids make 3D towers out of pipe cleaners, odds and ends, found objects.  Group made paper mosaic towers on bulletin board paper to decorate column in the Youth Services area.
• Additional note: similar public mosaics in Philadelphia: www.phillymagicgardens.org/‎
• www.visualnews.com/2015/02/former-monk-building-giant-cathedral-junk-hes-working-52-years
• Could also use the book: In Mary's Garden by TIna & Carson Kugler 709.2 KUG