Fourth grade alumni: do you remember doing mission tiles in 4th grade? Recently, 4th grade made tiles based on the California missions that they were assigned. The missions are an important part of California’s history, and a fundamental part of our curriculum. This fun project is done in art class, and 4th graders trace, model, and paint their assigned Missions on a clay Mexican tile. Several have a fond memory of the mission tiles, such as Campbell Buffington in the 7th grade, who says that the Californias missions are one of the most important parts of 4th grade and definitely a project she enjoyed.

Falcon’s Flyer has interviewed Mrs. Slater, who commandeers the Mission Tiles Project. She provided a very good insight and knew lots of information. Thank you Mrs. Slater!

The missions are assigned by Mrs. Currin and Mrs. Webster. All the California missions are assigned to students, and there are 21 missions total. This results in some students having the same mission.

The tiles are being finished up the week before opened house in art class and will be displayed in the fourth grade classrooms for open house. This project requires a lot of effort from students, but for a beautiful product: they start the drawing of the mission in art class in late November and finish the complete project in January.

As for the procedure: Fourth graders first draw the mission in pencil on a piece of paper. They can choose any view of the mission or a particular part of the mission they think is interesting. The students then draw the view of the mission they choose onto a thick 11″x11″ terra cotta tile.(The kind that are used to pave a floor).

After sketching out the design, the 4th graders start to paint the scenes! The students use ceramic glazes to paint the different scene with. The tiles are then placed into the kiln which is located in the school basement. The kiln can fit 8 tiles at a time so a lot of firing takes place since there are over 60 students. The tiles are amazing once they are fired and look their best! Mrs. Slater comments, “Glazing can be such a mystery but the outcome is usually a pleasant surprise.” Falcon’s Flyer agrees, glazes are different colors before painting but then reveal a shiny layering like watercolor after they are baked.

This unique idea of mission tiles had a special beginning: Mrs. Slater says, “A few years ago I was asked by Mrs. Ramirez if the tiles could be part of the 4th grade art curriculum. Since then it has become part of our class. I love the missions and it is a fun way to incorporate art with social studies!”

Again, thanks so much to Mrs. Slater for her hard work with the 4th grade and for her time for this interview!

If you want to see these beautiful tiles, come on over to St. Philip on Sunday, January 24th, 2016 to view all of St. Philip at its finest!