Creativity Challenge: Fears and Struggles

I will begin by saying that this art project idea was not mine.  My fiancé, Patrick did it with his 5/6 students and I used it for my class as well, since I knew it would get them talking.  Talking about fears and struggles is something that all students can associate with and can talk about.  Everyone's scared of something.  I'm terrified of snakes, natural disasters, being in an airplane, on a boat and even in some cases, being a passenger in a car.  Yes, all forms of transportation are an issue for me.  I'd much rather be able to run everywhere I go!

We started with a chat about an artist names John Hendrix (johnhendrix.com).  He does amazing sketches and is known for having his work shown in Time Magazine, Rolling Stone, Sports Illustrated, Random House, etc.

We talked about many of his pieces.  The students had very, very creative, imaginative and interesting thoughts about his pieces.  It really got them talking because a lot of the pieces have monsters, and other very bizarre creatures.

Afterwards, we looked at this piece:

We talked about why the moths were attacking the word moths.  One of the students even mentioned that maybe John Hendrix is scared of moths.  It was deep, rich, meaningful, engaging French conversation.  In small groups I had the students discuss fears or struggles that they have.  "J'ai peur" vs. "Je suis peur" is often a difficult concept to get, since in English we say "I AM scared...".  So this was a way for everyone to use "J'ai peur" correctly and hear it repeatedly from others.  The more they hear it, the more they'll remember it!  

For some reason, they LOVED talking about their fears and listening to their peers' fears!!!  Once they talked about it, I had them draw their fears/struggles attacking their own name.  Who knew this would be THE art project that get them the most excited since the fall!  

Here are some of them (they're not all complete):

This student is afraid of bees!

This student is afraid of spiders!

Another students scared of bees!

Insects seem to be a scary thing in 3/4f!  This student is afraid of horse flies.

This one is very interesting!  This student is afraid of the dark.  He explained to me that in his art, everything either upside down, unhealthy, or just not right, because you can't see in the dark and "everything gets messed up in the dark".

This student struggles with Math.  The numbers are coming from the mountains and attacking his name!

Fear of tidal waves.  The snakes can swims, so they are safe!

Spiders!

This student is afraid of swimming with her sister.  Once her sister jumped on her while in the pool and she felt like she was drowning.

The very last step of this activity was a short video response explaining their fear, how they demonstrated it and WHY they are afraid of this particular thing. 

Once my computer allows me to add these videos!  I will!  Stay tuned!

A BIG thank you to Patrick for the art project idea!