Mi colección personal (AMS)

This trimester in Español Avanzado Middle School we read Luna y los incorpóreos: Las máscaras de Omega by Spanish writer Ana Alonso. This first chapter in a multi-book YA series, introduces us to Luna, an apparently normal thirteen year with a big secret: she can see and talk to ghosts (or incorpóreos, as they prefer to call themselves)! We also meet Luna’s family, who lives and works in an antique shop. Surrounded by old and precious objects in the family’s antique shop, Luna finds a dazed and confused Omega, a newly arrived incorpóreo connected to a lekythos, a vessel from Ancient Greece. When Omega realizes that Luna can see him, he desperately asks for her help. They only have 72 hours to discover the name of his assassin and, why he is connected to the lekythos.

Filled with interesting characters and a fast-moving plot, this book gave us few clues as to where it takes place. We assume Luna and her family live somewhere in Spain, because they use “vosotros/vosotras” in their speech, but little is said about a specific location. The real setting of the story is truly their marvelous antique shop where, surrounded by treasures, we follow them in their quest to help Omega. With little information about a specific location, for our first project associated with this book, we virtually visited a city in Spain filled with antique shops and museums: Madrid. There we explored catalogues and collections in search of 8 to 10 objects that we would place, much like Luna’s family, in our own private collection. Students visited three antique shops and had the choice to visit from five different museums in the city (El Prado, Reina Sofía, Thyssen-Bornemisza, Museo de Antropología, Museo de Arqueología). Once they selected their objects, based on what appealed to them, they gathered as much information as possible about them. In several instances, we had to dig deeper about an artist or about a material to uncover small details about these objects.

Once they had their objects, students needed a place to display them! They used Kunstmatrix, a web-based tool, to create a 3D gallery space to house their objects. Similarly to a museum gallery, this space allows not only to view the art work, but to display information about each piece. As an additional task, students were given the choice to conduct a virtual guided tour of their collection.

We invite you to “walk around”, look closer, and read a little about some of these fascinating objects!

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La colección personal de Evan

El catálogo de la colección

La galería 3D con la colección