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Individuality with Pezzettino (Kindergarten)
I read the book Pezzettino by Leo Lionni to my Kindergarten class. Over the course of the unit we discussed what it meant to be made of many little parts, how each of us is special, what the word "Pezzettino" means and what language it is, what a habitat is and what defines a habitat, texture, pattern, form, shape, and a variety of processes ranging from painting, printing, sculpting, and collage.
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Planning Fantasy Cities (First Grade)
My first grade class looked at and compared two paintings of cities: This is Harlem by Jacob Lawrence and Gardanne by Paul Cezanne. We discussed the colors in each painting, which one the students would rather live in, the atmosphere of each city in the painting, the shapes involved, and other aspects of the paintings. We then discussed what it would be like to design our own city if we had the opportunity and what we would include in our city. Students then painted on blue, gray, or yellow paper and painted on the floor.
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Finding Images in the Abstract (Second Grade)
In this unit, the Second Grade class first looked at the color wheel and were able to define primary, secondary, and tertiary colors, as well as how to make those colors. They then mixed the colors using tempera on card stock paper and placed a sheet of saran wrap on the wet paint. When the paint dried, the saran wrap was lifted off of the paper to leave a textured surface. Students then went into these lines with a mixture of black tempera paint and Elmer's glue to identify lines they found interesting, potentially finding images in the abstracted lines. The following class they went between these raised black lines to add oil pastel to the prints to bring out certain qualities, shapes, or images they found interesting within their prints.
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Emphasizing Animal Qualities (Third Grade)
The Third Grade class looked at the torn paper medium pioneered by Eric Carle in his children's books and defined that process as collage. Students then determined an animal that they wanted to study and chose a torn tissue paper background to represent that animal's environment. Through this process we discussed warm colors and cool colors on the color wheel. Students then drew their animals on a sheet of paper, transferred the drawing to foam, drew onto the foam to create relief areas, and then printed the animals with ink onto their tissue paper collage background. We discussed emphasizing the patterns, textures, and lines with our animals as we drew and printed to express how we feel about those animals.
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Self-Portraits (Fourth Grade)
Students looked at three self-portraits: Rembrandt's, MC Escher's, and Norman Rockwell's. They determined that each of the works was a self-portrait, and were able to formulate a definition for the term. We then discussed proportion of the face in regards to the facial features, such as eyes, ears, and mouths. Students drew themselves with the aid of a mirror and drawing packets, then added light washes of color to the images. To finish, the portraits were mounted to a neutral sheet of paper. Students then looked at medallion quilt patterns and applied the idea of framing a central object by repeating patterns of triangles around their portraits.
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Repurposing Antiquity (Fifth Grade)
My Fifth Grade class began this unit by looking at the Pantheon in Rome, Italy, and discussed its key elements: orders or columns, a pediment, and a dome. We then looked at Michael Graves' Team Disney Building and how his building also has the same three elements, but does not look the same. Graves used elements familiar to the Disney franchise as his pediment and orders to give its own personal feel to the building. The students then drew and colored with colored pencil their own "repurposed" buildings using these three elements; some were buildings to Koala Kings, the Olympics, Sea Creatures, and Snow Men, and others were elegantly drawn and designed architectural facades.
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