At Sandburg, we have this tradition that was started last year called "locker laurels," where students attach small signs to their locker to represent various clubs/sports/groups/teams that they are members of here at school. Some students have quite a few on the front of their lockers!
Mr Walker and I thought it would be funny to create a series of locker laurels for random reasons and to covertly tape them to empty lockers around the school... to see if anyone noticed. A sort of art installation/performance art hybrid deal. After toying with a few ideas, the "Mr. Gail Fan Club" emerged:
I used an awesome simple graphic design website, called Canva, to design the laurels. A funny thing happened though. As the students began to notice the laurels around the school, they began to take them to put on their own lockers! Others asked Mr. Gail how they, too, could join the Mr. Gail fan club. Awesome!
A few teachers were confused by them and took them down completely and threw them out. Whomp whomp. Well, it was fun while it lasted.
The other side effect of this endeavor was that it was the inspiration for a Google Draw assignment for 7th graders. Students can design their OWN locker laurel, a personal logo, if you will, to display on their locker! Something like this, maybe:
I'd love to have the kids use Canva, but since the TOS lists 13+ as the age for users, I have to reconsider the tool for creation. Google Draw should do nicely in this case. I used it for my laurel pictured above.
As an alternative to a personal design, students could choose a team or activity here at school and design a laurel for that group. Who knows, maybe it could actually be used in the future!
- Mrs. L.
