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Some people see buildings as buildings, and some people know when they are looking at art. Roxie knows art, and thanks to her eye, your students can too. |
English/Language Arts
Explore word choice - vivid verbs
Use this Minute as a mentor text to help students with word selection when writing. Verbs like studded, billowed, shifted, and flanking are all examples of words that evoke images. Have your students look in their writing journals and brainstorm some replacements for their boring or bland verbs.
Explore metaphors
This Minute is a particularly interesting one to use in a discussion about metaphors, as the architect Gaudi created design elements in his buildings that behaved as metaphors and similes for the viewer. See if students can transfer the literary concept to the concrete, when they imagine a roof as a dinosaur’s backbone or oval windows that resemble yawns. See if a close read of this Minute gets your students seeing Gaudi’s designs as a metaphor for the natural world.
Explore compound adjectives
Compound adjectives are two or more words that when put together using hyphens, modify another word. Author Munro has used several of these: egg-shaped, scale-like, tile-encrusted. Introduce compound modifiers to your students and have them find the examples in the Minute. Then ask students to create their own compound adjectives in a writing journal text.
Social Studies
Explore European geography
How quickly can your students locate Barcelona on a world map or globe? If you make them locate a place every time one is mentioned in a Minute, you will take your students around the world! Find Europe, Spain and Barcelona. Have students describe the location relative to their hometown using directional words.
Explore UNESCO World Heritage sites
Not mentioned in the Minute, Antoni Gaudi has seven properties located in or around Barcelona that have been identified as World Heritage sites by the United Nations Scientific and Cultural Organization. Take your students on a tour of UNESCO’s site and find the gallery of Gaudi properties. Ask students to explore other UNESCO sites. Have them discuss why resources should be devoted to this kind of endeavor.
STEM
Explore geometry
Gaudi used all kinds of ruled surfaces and systems of proportions to create his unusual structures. Have students get more familiar with these concepts by looking at the videos on the Sagrada Familia Basilica site, and then see what kinds of models they can make using this geometry.
Art
Explore architecture as art
Use this Minute to introduce students to the idea of architecture and design as an art form. Gaudi built imitating nature, and as such, Author Munro tells us he was adverse to straight lines. Contrast Gaudi as architect with the famous American architect Frank Lloyd Wright, whose prairie style was also supposed to imitate nature but used almost exclusively straight lines. How is it that both of these ideas make sense?
Research Skills
Explore Google Arts & Culture
Use this Minute to introduce your students to Google Arts & Culture, a compilation of collections and stories from around the globe. Use the icon in the upper left corner to reveal the full menu of options.
Explore word choice - vivid verbs
Use this Minute as a mentor text to help students with word selection when writing. Verbs like studded, billowed, shifted, and flanking are all examples of words that evoke images. Have your students look in their writing journals and brainstorm some replacements for their boring or bland verbs.
Explore metaphors
This Minute is a particularly interesting one to use in a discussion about metaphors, as the architect Gaudi created design elements in his buildings that behaved as metaphors and similes for the viewer. See if students can transfer the literary concept to the concrete, when they imagine a roof as a dinosaur’s backbone or oval windows that resemble yawns. See if a close read of this Minute gets your students seeing Gaudi’s designs as a metaphor for the natural world.
Explore compound adjectives
Compound adjectives are two or more words that when put together using hyphens, modify another word. Author Munro has used several of these: egg-shaped, scale-like, tile-encrusted. Introduce compound modifiers to your students and have them find the examples in the Minute. Then ask students to create their own compound adjectives in a writing journal text.
Social Studies
Explore European geography
How quickly can your students locate Barcelona on a world map or globe? If you make them locate a place every time one is mentioned in a Minute, you will take your students around the world! Find Europe, Spain and Barcelona. Have students describe the location relative to their hometown using directional words.
Explore UNESCO World Heritage sites
Not mentioned in the Minute, Antoni Gaudi has seven properties located in or around Barcelona that have been identified as World Heritage sites by the United Nations Scientific and Cultural Organization. Take your students on a tour of UNESCO’s site and find the gallery of Gaudi properties. Ask students to explore other UNESCO sites. Have them discuss why resources should be devoted to this kind of endeavor.
STEM
Explore geometry
Gaudi used all kinds of ruled surfaces and systems of proportions to create his unusual structures. Have students get more familiar with these concepts by looking at the videos on the Sagrada Familia Basilica site, and then see what kinds of models they can make using this geometry.
Art
Explore architecture as art
Use this Minute to introduce students to the idea of architecture and design as an art form. Gaudi built imitating nature, and as such, Author Munro tells us he was adverse to straight lines. Contrast Gaudi as architect with the famous American architect Frank Lloyd Wright, whose prairie style was also supposed to imitate nature but used almost exclusively straight lines. How is it that both of these ideas make sense?
Research Skills
Explore Google Arts & Culture
Use this Minute to introduce your students to Google Arts & Culture, a compilation of collections and stories from around the globe. Use the icon in the upper left corner to reveal the full menu of options.
© Karen Sterling, 2018 - May be used for educational purposes without written permission
