Students Get Crafty to Celebrate Earth Day

The Art Cottage has been bustling with Lower School students all week as each class spent time crafting art projects that honor Earth Day and raise awareness on environmental issues.

Second-grade students commenced the longtime Hamden Hall tradition: the Paper Bag Project. Using markers and crayons, students decorated an assortment of large brown paper bags with designs and expressions such as “Happy Earth Day,” and “Recycle and Reuse” along with images of planet Earth, flowers, trees, hearts, and more. The decorated bags were hand delivered by the students to the Whitneyville Food Market. This has been the first in store drop off in four years due to the pandemic. The bags will either be picked up and used by their parents or by customers during their grocery shopping trip this Saturday. As a token of appreciation, the owner Patrice Notarfrancesco provided the group with an educational, fun tour of the market. Each student got to pick out their own piece of fruit as a thank-you gift.

Third-grade students turned their in-class social studies unit lesson on the Savanna grasslands into visual art as they designed and constructed lion relief creations using recyclable items. Students used torn-apart magazine pages to create the animal heads complete with detailed manes made from pieces of recycled boxes. Paper bowls and toilet paper rolls were the armature for 3D animal sculptures.

“All of these projects serve as teachable moments about the Earth, environment, pollution, and sustainability,” said Lower School art teacher Sue Bennet 1973. 

Other projects included first-grade students created collages of Mother Earth being hugged using permanent markers, crayons, and watercolors to colorfully design the image and messages about saving the planet. The collages were mounted on recycled cardboard and newspaper. Additionally, students designed junk robots in class with Mrs. Messina and Mrs. Godinez using recycled materials such as cereal boxes, milk cartons, toilet paper rolls, and more. Next week, Kindergarten and Grade 5 will work on a collaborative project where they create their own bird feeders using toilet paper rolls, string, sunbutter, and bird seed.