The seventh grade took advantage of our proximity to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in January, in order to visit "the Galleries of the Art of the Arab Lands, Turkey, Iran, Central Asia and Later South Asia".
Perfectly tied to our social studies unit on Islamic Civilization, the exhibit offered dazzling textiles, glass, tiles, wood, and pottery decorated in Islamic themes and elements, such as geometric patterns, figural representations, calligraphy, and vegetative motifs. Students sketched, wrote, and took pictures of aspects of the works, and upon returning to school, they checked their new information against the art they were creating in preparation for a creative project on the Abbasid Era to be sure their work properly portrayed elements of Islamic art.