SchoolArts - March 2012

created more ceramic sea creatures, including starfish and crabs. In addition, they made paper mosaics of other sea creatures, including a mermaid, a dolphin, and objects like the Yellow Submarine and a treasure chest. These images were later enlarged and made into designs for the murals. Students also learned the Beatles’ song, “ Octopus’s Garden” in the music room.

In one weekend the design of the octopus—the overseer of the garden— came to life with the help of teachers, children, parents and community members with painted tiles, pieces of pottery, and broken mirrors. The children’s clay sea-creatures joined the octopus in his watery world.

The words integrity, curiosity,
cooperation, creativity, and compas-
sion that appear on the octopus and
other creatures are part of the goals of
the International Baccalaureate Pri-
mary Years Program, since McKinley is
an International Baccalaureate school.

Enjoying the Octopus’s Garden

One sunny day I visited the garden
with two second graders, Tristan and
Maria, and one third grader, Andrea,
as my guides. They told me how proud
they were of their plots, and that they
ate carrots from the earlier crop (the
school kitchen pre-
pared the vegetables).

They were especially taken with the animals in the garden. Tristan said he saw bunnies twice!

Suddenly Maria
pointed to some wiggly things in the
dirt. “Are those worms or slugs?” she
asked.

“They are slugs and they will eat the plants!” replied Tristan. In an instant he picked both up and threw them to the corner of the garden. And then, as if on cue, a butterfly flitted through.

A ladybug landed on Tristan and

There is always
reluctance to leave this
special magical place, this
oasis—this nourishment
for the body and spirit.

accompanied us as we explored the colorful mural designs. All three children inspected the murals close up and pointed out which colors and shapes they liked and which textures felt good to their exploring fingers.

There is always reluctance to leave this special magical place, this oasis— this nourishment for the body and spirit.

This garden is food for the soul, and it will provide life and learning for many years to come.

Karen Kenyon is the author of Sunshower (iUniverse, 2011) and The Brontë Family: Passionate Literary Geniuses (Lerner Publications, 2002). kkenyon@ucsd.edu