the first few weeks of art, i try to take things really slow (i teach in 2 schools and you never know the background in art the students have had thus far). no matter what grade it is, i start off with some line lessons and slowly add more elements/principles of art as the year continues as well as some more DBAE aspects to it.
this year in my district we have new learning goals for every subject matter. these goals need to tie into every lesson which might be a little hard to do (anything new is challenging) but once we highlight them for every lesson, it'll become second nature. these goals can also help inspire new lessons and create more meaning for the artwork. we, as teachers, might find the meaning very evident but these goals will help us communicate the significance of the lessons to the students on an even deeper level.
anyway, more about lines...
1st grade - bug's eye view
above is a 1st grade lesson: bug's eye view. students look at pictures of up-close plants to help drive home the concept of them being small bugs and having the world around them be an adventure. we then draw a few lines together: some giant blades of grass then i teach them how to overlap the grass. we fill our page with more plants/grass, trace with sharpie, then color in completely. good way to see where each student is starting from.
3rd grade expressive lines
above is 3rd grade expressive lines. the students first brainstorm as a class as many lines they can think of - even if they want to invent a line and give it a name, that is fine. i then demonstrate how to "cut" their paper into sections (with either straight or slightly wavy lines) almost like they are dividing a pizza. they trace those lines in sharpie. they then have to fill each space up with a different type of line in sharpie. i don't have them start with pencil for this part because that would add a whole other class period to the lesson. they know if they make a mistake to work with it. i told them to throw perfect out the window our first day in art... :) marker was added for color.
radial symmetry: 4th graders
i love this lesson! it's so simple but gets a stunning result. 4th grade: radial balance. i used to teach this with watercolors later in the year to 4th graders but this seems so logical to start with. once they get into the rhythm of "drawing a little bit, then rotating, drawing a little bit, then rotating"... they can't stop. it's almost like an organized, meditative doodle.
how we start: with a square sheet of paper (we used 9x9) but you could easily go smaller or bigger...i have students stand up to find the center of their paper (it's easier to see than when they are sitting) they mark the center the best they can with a tiny dot in pencil. i have them practice 3 lines in pencil first until they find the rhythm. once they get that down, if they feel comfortable they can trace over those lines in marker and then continue adding a variety of lines in marker without having to draw them first. i actually had a lot of student draw the whole thing with pencil first, and that is ok. very important!!: have them always keep their less-dominant hand on the paper so they can turn as they draw. that way it keeps every line tightly aligned with the last.
5th grade line trees
5th grade is always tough for me to start the year. i feel like i have so many unique, challenging lessons to do and i want to dive right in but i forget that no matter what age, students need a baseline and a refresher for the year. so here we talked about line, brainstormed together quickly as a review some types of line and did this guided drawing. i don't do guided drawings a lot but i started a new school this year as my travel school so i wanted to assess their abilities. here we did a nature/tree drawing using multiple types of line. some students chose to do funky lines and colors and some chose more simple, realistic compositions. i told them either was fine as long as they were using their tools by the rules and trying their hardest.
No comments:
Post a Comment