Charlotte’s Mobility and Mobiles

David Morway, Art, Lansdowne Elementary I. B. World School

Final Unit (PDF)

Implementing Common Core Standards (PDF)

200 Word Synopsis

This unit is written for a second grade elementary art class.  It can easily be adapted for higher levels of elementary school, middle school or even high school.  The overarching art and educational goals are to have students gain an understanding of what immigration is, while learning about mobile sculpture and culminating with the creation their own mobile showing some background knowledge of the largest immigrant cultures that have been moving into the Charlotte, North Carolina area.  There are four main goals would like to achieve.  Goal one:  To teach the students about who lives in modern day Charlotte, NC.  Goal two:  To help foster the students’ understanding of immigration.  Goal three:  To educate the students about the art form of mobiles.  Goal four:  Create a mobile based on Charlotte’s recent immigration.  The mobile is a type of kinetic art which incorporates movement into it. Therefore the class is illustrating the movement of immigrants into Charlotte by the movement found in a mobile.  Alexander Calder is the considered the founder of mobiles, so he is the artist I choose to highlight to the class.