Advice from Third Graders in Ms. Patton's Class at YIES in Ypsilanti

ADVENTURING THROUGH

the Art Museum

Advice from Students in Ms. Patton’s Third Grade Class at Ypsilanti International Elementary

A D VENTURI N G THRO U HG the art museum

Ms. Patton’s Class

Advice from Students in Ms. Patton’s Third Grade Class at YIES

826 National’s Commitment to Inclusion

As an organization committed to encouraging youth in their creative expression, personal growth, and academic success, 826 National and its chapters recognize the importance of diversity at all levels and in all aspects of our work. In order to build and maintain the safe, supportive 826 environment in which great leaps of learning occur, we commit to inclusion: We will not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, ethnicity, age, gender identity, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, nationality, marital status, English fluency, parental status, immigration status, military service, or disability.

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Megan Shuchman Executive Director

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Eli Sparkman Teaching Artist

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Sean Emery

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Holly Hunt

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Phil Weiss

The U-M Museum of Art puts art and ideas at the center of campus and public life. We create experiences that enrich our understanding of one another, foster joy, and build a more just future. Through exhibitions, programs, research, and community partnerships we are redefining what a campus museum can be.

Copyright © 2023 by 826michigan and Blotch Books.

All rights reserved by 826michigan, the many whims of Dr. Thaddeus Blotch, the illustrators, and the authors.

This book is a work of fiction. Any similarities to any people or events, real or imaginary, is purely coincidental. No part of this book may be reproduced without express written permission from the publisher, except for small excerpts for the purposes of review or scholarly study.

Many thanks to the University of Michigan Museum of Art and our volunteers for their participation in this field trip.

By purchasing this book, you are helping 826michigan continue to offer free student programs. For more information, please visit: 826michigan.org

With gratitude for our supporters

826michigan gratefully recognizes the incredible generosity of its Board, individual funders, and foundation and corporate partners that make its work possible in providing free quality writing programs to the students of southeastern Michigan. In particular, we wish to acknowledge the supporters of our Washtenaw County based work: the Ann Arbor Area Community Foundation, the Hawkins Project, the Kiwanis Club of Ann Arbor, the James A. and Faith Knight Foundation, the May Family Foundation, and the Poetry Foundation.

UMMA is committed to providing access to the Museum and its programs for the breadth of our communities. UMMA’s K–12 engagement program strives to support teachers and students by providing flexible and creative experiences including free admission, layered instruction, teacher resources, and transportation stipends for qualifying schools. The UMMA K–12 program is generously supported by Michigan Medicine, the Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan, and the Kiwanis Club of Ann Arbor.

What would happen if you could jump inside a work of art?

This isn’t an ordinary trip to the museum! During this field trip program, students imagined that they were shrinking down to the size of a paper clip and then jumping inside of different art pieces at the University of Michigan Museum of Art. They worked with volunteers and museum educators to write creative survival guides, giving advice for how readers might survive inside of these different art worlds. Students’ writing was then published in a book—the one you are now holding. Students toured the museum and saw the art that they wrote about in real life, reading their newly-written survival guides in front of the art.

This field trip is offered each year to every third grade class in the Ypsilanti Community Schools district. The program is a partnership between 826michigan, a local youth writing organization, and the University of Michigan Museum of Art to highlight the connections between art and writing.

We hope you enjoy reading these guides to survival in some very unusual settings!

How to Survive Alice

Florencia Pita

Alice, 2007

Polymer foam, PETG, urethane

Gift of the artist

Ms. Patton’s Class

First, you smell bubblegum and flowers in the air. You feel hungry and a cupcake appears in front of you. There are magical powers in this world. Then you start feeling nauseous. You are trying to figure out where you are and whether you should escape or stay here forever. If you want to get out, you can wait for a magical unicorn to spawn and escape with the magical unicorn. Then, you notice a unicorn spawning out of the biggest flower.

Next, you should beware the Queen of Hearts and her card guards. She might drag a unicorn into the holes and it will be lost forever. You should find unicorn before that happens so it can help you get out of the art.

Last, find the biggest flower–it will take you back to your world. You’re still tiny, so jump onto the smallest flower and then you grow back to normal.

How to Survive Future Cache

Courtesy of the artist

Andrea Carlson

Future Cache, 2022

Gouache on paper

Group 1

First, you need to look for fish to eat, but they are sick from eating the trash.

Then, you need to go to the coastal forest to pick out some berries to eat. Amber berries taste like honey and cinnamon nutmeg and tangerine. They are orange and have brown speckles.

Next, a giant pink eraser king says “stop eating my berries, I will erase you just like all the others on the planet, I hate all things creative.” The giant pink eraser king dosen’t like his pinkness because it looks undignified. You grab some pencils on the shore and use them to draw on the giant eraser; he tries to erase himself and then he is gone.

Last, the animals and living creatures come back. You need to get rid of the trash, you tell everyone to find a pair of gardening gloves to pick up the trash. Then you throw the extra pieces of the eraser king on the pile of trash and it disappears! Then, you hop into the void tunnel (you hear a fizzing, popping noise!), and you’re back home!

Group 2

First, you need to find food, video games, water, donuts, Mountain Dew, a boat, and a bed. To get these things, you need to find an everything-inator that can make anything. It is buried under the sand and you must find it with your brain cell. The everything-inator has a shovel on top of it and an invisible sign that is only visible when you touch it.

Then, there is a genie that grants wishes. Anything you write on a piece of paper comes true. You realize that you don’t need the everything-inator. You wish for infinite amounts of food, video games, water, donuts, Mountain Dew, a boat, and a bed.

Next, you can either stay in this world forever and live a happy life with infinite money and everything you want. Or you can have the genie transport you back to Earth and you won’t have all of the infinite things you want anymore.

Last, if you stay you can wish for a mansion like Elon Musk’s house with a million cats and dogs, video game rooms, and a hole into the abyss. You can jump into the abyss and fly and fall around forever unless you say “out.” You can also wish for 300 pancakes or waffles and a ladder so you can climb up and eat them.

How to Survive Lion Dance and Monkey Dance

Unrecorded, Japanese

Top: Lion Dance Under Red Plum Blossoms, 1730-1740

Bottom: Monkey Dance Under White Plum Blossoms, 1730-1740

One of a pair of 6-fold screens ink, color, and gold pigment on paper

Museum purchase made possible by the Margaret Watson Parker Art Collection Fund

Group 1

First, you should have fun at the Japanese Halloween costume party by eating candy and dancing.

Then, don’t be bad or you can’t dance with everyone, and you will be kept in the house. The only way to get out is if you are nice and never steal money.

Next, you might think about what candy you like, find it, and eat it.

Last, we recommend that you be nice to the dragon, or he will not be nice to you.

Group 2

First, you get stuck in the picture with nine levels. This picture transports you back to a very long time ago. The people inside are just watching. Level one is to get through the door. Level four is to help the people to write music.

Then, you get past level four. This is when there is a dragon, beware! The dragon is from Ohio. We luckily have two sticks that we can use to fight off the dragon.

Next, you have to make friends in level five. They even let you keep their swords. Their sword is a powerful one.

Last, you will reach the final level. The people there are trying to escape too. At first you might be afraid of them because they have spears, but then you will join forces. The dragon turns nice and flies you to the moon. Then, because you are so zoomed out, you can jump back to Earth and jump back to where you live.

How to Survive

Nevelson Dark Presence III

Louise Nevelson Dark Presence III, 1971

Painted wood Gift of Bobby Kotick

Group 1

First, watch out for entities that are shape-shifters that can turn into anything. They can turn into squids like Squidward, objects, and animals. You know that their weakness is light. You also have a nice entity that gives you tools to defeat the other entities.

Then, you should find the portal where you can escape to another island. You know where the portal is but you need to get there safely. To get there, you have to make sure that the shape-shifting entities don’t catch you first.

Next, you should protect each other with whatever you can find–it might even be a frying pan. To get the frying pan, you will need to ask the nice entities to help you. You should zig-zag down by jumping across the room to get to the portal.

Last, you should climb the ladder and exit through the portal.

Group 2

First, you have to meet up with your partner at the tip top of the painting at the right side. You guys then go towards the bottom left side of the painting to grab water bottles from behind the turning sharp pieces.

Then, you have to go towards the cabinets at the top middle section to get food. You find dino chicken nuggets, and six boxes of pizza for food, and popcorn, Lucky Charms, and lemonade for snacks.

Next, you have to watch out for all the spiky objects and beware of any scary animals or creatures like Peppa Pig. You should also look for the fluffy cotton candy beds to sleep in which are by the right middle section next to the spikes.

Last, you have to go look for the magical unicorn in the middle where all the buttons are. You have to press the correct password to unlock the unicorn and return back to normal size.

How to Survive Ngoromera

Masimba Hwati

Ngoromera, 2020

Brass, iron, copper, carbon steel, and plastic

Museum purchase made possible by the University of Michigan

Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, and the Director’s Acquisition Committee, 2020

Group 1

First, you have to figure out where you landed and meet up with your friends. Everyone will meet up at the instrument house. Inside the tubes is the house, which is silver and everyone has their own sleeping bag. There is a TV, and food and water so that everyone can survive. There is a fireplace inside to keep everyone warm. The restroom is in the basement. Further inside the house, there is an arcade, movie theater, a computer room, a lake, and a garden. There is also a school. If you need clothes, you have to find a flower in the garden that will bloom and give you clothes that are your size. To find it, memorize which one is the real one so you never forget. In the garden, there is also a flower dog named Daisy who can be a guard dog. Make sure to have guards outside who know the secret password so that only friends can come inside.

Then, make sure you have protection. There are evil goblins in this world that will attack, especially because you took their gold, diamonds, and blankets. They will try to break through the protection that you build around your house, such as a glass dome. There are different kinds of goblins. Some have tentacles, some have lots of eyes, and some are part spider. They make noises such as “meow,” “brr brr,” “rff,” “mmmmm,” and “gut gut.” Also have a plan B, which includes another house with a bunker that you can escape to. There is an emergency slide that you can take to get to it.

Next, make sure to avoid the goblin house. Their house is like a swamp. It’s very muddy and dirty, and it smells like bubble gum and dirty socks mixed together. There’s also rotten eggs and rotten milk inside, because that’s what they eat for breakfast. They also eat a lot of spicy noodles, which is their favorite food. Inside, there is a secret net that will catch you unless you’re a goblin.

Last, make a trap house to capture the goblins. Put fake gold inside the house to lure them inside, because they will think they can get it back. A net will fall on them and they will be captured! If you find the piece of the gold with a diamond in it, you can push it like a button to grow back to normal size. Another option is to find a dog with eight legs, which can lick you and make you normal size. There is a button in the instrument house that will bring you back outside the tubes.

Group 2

First, you notice you are floating on some sort of object. You call it the thingamabob since you have no clue what it could be. Since you are small, you are hungry and need lots of food to survive. You smell the good smells of food from across the thingamabob. You are starving. You stand at the sharp end of whatever this is and need to climb the entire thingamabob to reach all the food on the large horn. Then, while you are climbing the thingamabob, the thingamabob awakes from its sleep. The thingamabob only wakes up on full moons and has slept for 100 years before this. It turns out, the thingamabob is an ancient endangered creature, so you cannot hurt it. Its horns scream and it begins growling as it wakes. Its sharp tail wags in defense, but the thingamabob doesn’t feel you climbing, so you must be extra careful and quiet.

Next, you realize that you have temporary eye drops in your pockets that make animals unable to see for 30 minutes. This is just long enough to blind the thingamabob and get all the food from the horn of the thingamabob. You are climbing the neck of the thingamabob, trying to make no noise. You reach the head of the ancient creature and drop the eye drops in the thingamabob. The thingamabob drops cause it to burrow into the ground and hide in its underground burrow. You find even more food than before. You are set to never be hungry again. However, you have a problem. You are now underground.

Lastly, after searching for an exit before the thingamabob can see again, you find a tunnel that the thingamabob’s babies used to reach the outer world. You now have a route to leave the underground home of the thingamabob, without the creature seeing you! You take all the food outside while the thingamabob can’t see and run away as far as you can. You sit near the milk river, the same river that the thingamabob sleeps above. You now safe and will never be hungry again!

Author Name:

How to Survive:

First,

Then,

About the Author

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