Kandinsky Art and Design Thinking

5^th grade students learned about Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky.  Kandinsky connected music and emotion to painting and is considered by many the founder of abstract art.  Inspired by the classical music of Scriabin and Schoenberg, students created their own Kandinsky-like paintings.  Next, the 5th graders ventured outside to create a Kandinsky-inspired mural.   During the following class, students were tasked with a design challenge to help them make deeper connections to Kandisnky.   They were asked to work collaboratively to design and sketch a product or mechanism that would help Kandinsky at some point in his life.  Students connected their experiences to Kandinsky’s and they practiced empathetic inquiry.  Our current endeavor in the design process is creating digitally rendered 3D models of the concepts on iPads.  Using Autodesk’s 123D design App, students are transforming geometric shapes into the structure of their prototypes.  Final details and iterations occur within their development as students educate and evaluate each other throughout the innovation process. This kind of project based learning gives students an opportunity to make deeper connections to artists and processes.  It invites curiosity and creativity and encompasses the direction of 21^st century education by engaging students fully, while practicing the elements of Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics or STEAM.