4th Grade:
#2: Leaf Prints
I could tell by classroom and individual discussion that students were understanding contour line, but still have difficulty being attentive to both positive and negative space. I knew that I would need to attack this concept in a new way with an appealing hook. Bring on the brayers! What kid can resist the "rolly-thingy" and the process of printmaking. I was able to reinforce the key terms: contour line, positive space, negative space. Students rolled out white paint onto the back of a leaf (vein side up) and then pressed it onto black paper. The focus this time was on planning where the leaves were printed to have interesting negative space.
#1: What would your sign say?
Art is a form of visual communication. We share ideas with the lines, shapes, and symbols that we include in our work. These concepts, as well as use of space, will be the focus of several projects for the beginning of fourth grade. These can be challenging concepts, so we will attack them in a variety of ways until a true understanding is reached.
Day 1:
For the first project, students were first challenged to decode some pictographs from the National Park Department. It was a fun way to emphasize communicating with images. We were able to discuss what makes a sign effective. They noticed that there were simple shapes only; no details. The idea has been simplified to only include what is absolutely necessary for the idea to be understood.
Day 1:
For the first project, students were first challenged to decode some pictographs from the National Park Department. It was a fun way to emphasize communicating with images. We were able to discuss what makes a sign effective. They noticed that there were simple shapes only; no details. The idea has been simplified to only include what is absolutely necessary for the idea to be understood.
This first step provided the students with some background knowledge. I've taught this lesson in the past and found that many struggled with contour line and eliminating details. I decided to use this time as an opportunity to isolate these concepts, and thus, the Cloud Game was born! Using the ELMO projector in class, each student cut a piece of white paper using an informative contour line. Then they placed it on a blue paper with clouds and projected it for the class. We pretended that we were spending a lazy Saturday looking up at the clouds and imagining what shapes we could find. If the artist was successful, then their fellow classmates could decode their image by the contour line only. Now that we had a firm grasp of the concepts, they were ready to begin planning the next step. I asked the students if they were to pick a door in their home, what would they want a sign to say on that door? They received a handout to brainstorm with at home.
Day Two:
After demonstrating the steps as a whole group, students were given the remainder of class time to create their sign. Their white shapes were the positive space, and the black paper background was the negative space. These key terms would be focused on even more in the next lesson.
Day Two:
After demonstrating the steps as a whole group, students were given the remainder of class time to create their sign. Their white shapes were the positive space, and the black paper background was the negative space. These key terms would be focused on even more in the next lesson.