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8
SUMMER
2013
It so happened that the PYP lines of
inquiry for that unit was about communi-
ties. Each member of the community had
a role to play including the second graders
themselves. Somehow, they had to beautify
the wall and make IC Ain Aar a prettier
school.The students and their art teacher,
Lara Mansour, set to work brainstorming
ideas. Since they were studying the work
of artist Gustave Klimt, why not draw the
infamous Tree of Life as a mural?
The work began. “The students did the
work,” said Mansour. “My responsibility
was to prepare the wall.”
No sooner had she drawn the tree and
painted the base in black, than the
students – 92 in all- began cutting and
coloring different shaped circles to “hang”
on the tree.They dabbled in different
graduated hues using soft and wax pastels
“with colors ranging from warm to cool,”
explained Mansour.
Once the circles were ready, parents – as
‘members of the community with a role to
play’ were asked to help out.
For a week, during art class, parents and
children could be seen deciding where the
circles should be placed on the wall and
pasting them accordingly.
“It wasn’t pretty before,” said Lea
Chamaa, 7, who was one of the students
working diligently on the wall. “Now, it’s
beautiful.”
But according to Ralph Etyemezian, 7,
the other walls “will now get jealous, we
have to work on them too.”
Mansour is already on top of that. Plans
are already underway to decorate the
other walls. But not before the dull ce-
ment stairs are decorated with mosaics
that grade 3 are currently preparing.
And the wall was not lonely anymore….
The Lonely Wall
Once upon a time, there was a wall in IC’s
Ain Aar campus that was drab and white.
Nobody liked it much.The children didn’t
play with it or look at it. So the wall cried.
One little boy heard the crying and told his
friends: the wall is crying. “What do you
want ‘wall’?” asked the children, “why are
you crying?”
“Because I’m drab and white,” cried out
the wall. “We’ll make it all better,” cried
the children. And so they set to work.They
thought and drew. And finally, they made
all kinds of beautiful colors for the lonely
wall….