3rd Grade Architecture 2 Ways

One of the Visual Arts standards in Kansas addresses trying out a variety of media and comparing and contrasting media.  (I don't have the exact wording with me.)  I thought it would be interesting to have students use the same image in two different ways.  Last fall one of my 3rd graders asked if they could draw imaginative buildings and I thought it was a great idea so I made sure to write it down!

On the first day of the project, the students worked on black scratch art paper.  I have a bunch left from the previous art teacher and I'm not super impressed with it.  Some of the students have a really hard time getting the lines started.  I tried sharpening the wooden styluses (is that the right plural form?) because some were getting dull and it didn't make much of a difference.  I just told them to do their best and keep trying until they found the right angle to hold it or a way that worked for them.  I introduced the concept of architecture to the students and only one out of over 100 knew what an architect was since he aspires to be one!  I read somewhere that telling people to "be creative" can actually inhibit creativity and that asking them to make something only they would think of is a better approach.  I kept that in mind and asked the students to draw a building only they would design.  I encouraged special features- we had flying buildings, buildings that looked like cookies (fun fact, a building that is shaped like something is called a duck!), buildings with simple machines, special entrances, and security features incorporated.  I always have students check with me when they think they are done.  I asked the students to tell me what was special about their building and encouraged a few to add more design elements if the building was on the plain side.  The majority of my students were really in to this project.  Some students who had never really talked to me besides to answer a quick question went on and on describing their buildings.

Each student was given a half sheet of scratch art paper.  When they were finished, I gave them a 9x12 inch piece of white drawing paper which they folded "hamburger style".  The scratch art paper was glued to one half of the drawing paper and then the students were to draw the exact same image from the scratch paper on the other half of the drawing paper.  The students drew in pencil then traced with sharpie and colored with crayons.  I reserved the last 10 minutes of work time for writing.  I asked the students to compare and contrast the two drawings in whichever way made sense to them (Venn diagram, list, sentences, etc.) and describe the special features of their building.  I mentioned "pretend you are trying to sell your building so you want to tell the buyer all the cool things you made" just to try to get them to be descriptive.  Some students took it literally and wrote an ad for their buildings, I really LOVE that idea!  All in all, I think this project turned out pretty good and would be worth doing again.  I always like to incorporate writing and only had to send a few back to the classroom for students to finish since they tried to get away with not doing it in Art class!

Writing from the back of a project

The writing below goes with this drawing

The writing below goes with this drawing

 This drawing is by the student who wants to be an architect.  I was super impressed for two reasons.  1- I have never covered perspective* so this was intuitive! 2- For some reason this student does not use the pincer hold for his pencil and holds it in his fist.  Somehow he makes it work!

*I haven't covered perspective yet partly because I am not super comfortable with perspective using rulers and partly because I don't know when, meaning at what grade level, it should be introduced!

4th Grade Visual Journaling- Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte

When I wrote my first unit plan in an Art Ed class at ESU, my favorite part of the assignment was called Journey into a Work of Art.  We had to imagine being in the work of art (I chose Sandy Skoglund's Raining Popcorn) and write about what we experienced using all 5 senses.  I thought this would be a great way to encourage creative thinking and work on writing skills with my students.

I chose Seurat's A Sunday Aternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte (1884-86) for the work of art and taught this lesson in one 40 minute class period (not a regular art class, a rotation set up while the 4th grade teachers collaborate.)  First, I showed the students a PowerPoint with Seurat's stats.  Next, I showed an image I found on Wikipedia, a detail of another of Seurat's Pointilist paintings, to help the students understand the concept of Pointilism.  After learning about Pointilism, I projected a large image of La Grand Jatte and explained visual journaling to the students.

I found a really cool website, http://visualjournaling.com/home.html, that explains visual journaling and has reference images.  We broke the term apart: "visual" tells us that there will be something to look at (doodles, drawings, etc.), and "journaling" tells us that there will be writing.  We listed the 5 senses and the students used their imaginations to complete the visual journaling project.  I told them that visual journaling was very free form and they could write a postcard to someone about their trip, make a list of what they experienced, write a poem, or write a paragraph.  However they wanted to do their journaling was fine.  I gave the students fine point sharpies to write with and told them they could use pencil, sharpie, or colored pencils to add the visual details.

Some students were noticeably more comfortable with the project but I think almost all enjoyed it.  I like to point out the little dog and the monkey by the lady with the umbrella, as well as the man who appears to be playing a trumpet to encourage the students to look for little details to help them.  I did a visual journaling project with my 6th grade students that I will post about next.  I am looking forward to introducing this to other grades and doing more projects in the future.