The idea of the peace exhibition is to reinforce the message and knowledge pupils have already learned about peace and Peace Day through creativity; to link that learning to a wider sense of purpose and com- munity by exhibiting the resulting artwork for the rest of the school, parents and even the local community. Older students may be asked to engage with the mechanics of putting the exhibition together, as well as creating the artwork itself. The art exhibition could provide a focus for broader Peace Day activities, as well as being a starting point for future Peace Day outreach and activities in the local community.
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If local community involvement is feasible for your school to facilitate, it will of course be necessary to iden- tify a suitable opening date, time and venue, as well as to invite key local figures and press, with sufficient lead time. As part of handwriting practice your pupils, individually or as a class, could handwrite invitations to certain individuals themselves (accompanied by an introductory letter from the school) giving them a sense of involvement and ownership of the process.
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Finally, a class or school trip to a local gallery or museum might provide a good starting point for the ex- hibition project. For KS1 such a trip might serve as a general introduction to what an exhibition looks like, whereas KS2 pupils could be encouraged to look at the types of information displayed by each object or piece of art, take note of the atmosphere, activities, music (or lack of) and layout. Of course, this type of field trip may not be practicable in your particular school’s circumstances and it may be more appropriate for older students at least to research exhibitions online. Museums and galleries such as The Natural History Museum and The National Gallery have overviews of their current exhibitions that can be viewed on their respective websites.
Introduction: •
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Introduce to the class the idea of an exhibition as a public display of works of art or other items of interest, using local museums or famous national galleries to illustrate the range of sizes, scope, content, layout etc. If you have taken your pupils to a gallery or museum, recap the key features of the exhibition.
Introduce the idea of a Peace Day exhibition of peace artwork. The exhibition is also an opportunity to display any work done for any of the other lesson plans in this resource. You may wish to mention the possibility of including the anti-bullying pledge, world food map etc, as well as the artwork to be specially created.
Activity: choosing themes and media •
In groups or as a class, discuss the possible theme/s of an exhibition that opens on or around Peace Day 21 September. You could use the other lessons in this Resource as inspiration, choose from the list below or you may have your own ideas. For younger pupils you may find it more appropriate to create a short list of themes with the focus on previous work and curriculum goals, and then ask pupils to choose their preferred option:
o Friendship, making friends o The Peace One Day journey o Saying sorry o Anti-bullying
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o How individuals can make a difference
o A peace of cake o What Peace Day is about
o The Day After Peace films and “Peace One Day” song
o Peacemakers
Once the theme/s have been chosen, decide whether pupils will work as individuals to create their art work or in groups.
Depending on the resources available, encourage pupils to consider a range of media: collage, model, painting, comic strip etc - whatever best reflects the purpose and thoughts behind the idea for the art- work. Encourage students to think in three dimensions as well as two.