Bringing the school community together through art is a wonderful way to start the school year - and so our first project in 2010 was an all-school collaborative mural in celebration of International Peace Day (September 21).

Each student (TK–8) contributed to the mural by designing a square section that would later be assembled into the mosaic-style finished installation: a peace sign set within the planet earth.  This project was a perfect way to get the students thinking about what peace means to them, and how such ideas can be expressed through writing and art.

Some classes were given specific guidelines from which to create their peace-pieces - for example, second graders used only National Geographic images to create their art, while third graders experimented with color pencil and drew jungle scenes inspired by Henri Rousseau.  Middle school students worked with multiple materials to create three-dimensional peace-themed work, and other students chose to create a realistic landscape or seascape.

In seeing the final product, students realized how important their individual piece was to completion of the whole.  Many were surprised by the finished mural (especially how big it was) and were excited to see such a powerful symbol of peace created by the Presidio Hill School student body!