Mandalas

7th Graders this week have been learning about the Buddhist and Hindu tradition of Mandala making and what they symbolize and their deep significance within both religions.

We started off with a clip from the 2011 photo-documentary 'Samsara' which shows Tibetan Monks creating a sand mandala.

After we talked more about Mandalas I showed a second clip from the movie which shows the monks destroying the Mandala only moment after completion. Students were amazed and in awe to see the monks so easily destroy something beautiful, but understood that it was a sacred ceremony in their beliefs and traditions.

We started working on the project with a practice worksheet and as we started on that each student came up one by one to add to a class mandala on the whiteboard. Below is a stop-motion video I put together of each student coming up and adding to it during class time:

7th Grade students just began outline their Mandalas today and soon will begin coloring them in and finishing them up. Here are some pictures of the process:

More to come soon!