Time: 6-8 weeks
In this unit students become aware of visual art in its many forms in their own community.
People who work with visual images include painters, quilters, ceramic artists, beadwork artists, sculptors, sign painters, and people who arrange displays in store windows. These people live in all communities. By studying them and the work they do, students can begin to understand the role visual images play in daily life, and the many ways visual images reflect and define culture.
This unit focuses on the student's understanding of the role of visual art in various cultures, time periods, and their own homes and community.
Sample Topic: "Farm Animals"
Suggested Resources:
Starter List of Activities
1. Introductory Activities
This mini-unit encourages students to become aware of the connections between visual art and daily life. Help students to understand that many artists choose their subject matter from what they see around them. Support students in seeing that visual art is present in their own community.
Study farm animals. Have posters, reproductions, reference books, and other items on display.
Read stories and poems about farm animals.
Visit a farm.
Have students draw their favourite farm animal.
2. Main Activities
Ask students if they know of someone who paints or sculpts farm animals. There might be someone in the community. If so, invite the artist to class, arrange a studio visit, or try to get samples of the work to look at in the classroom.
Find reproductions of art works that have farm animals as subject matter. Use illustrations in children's books in addition to paintings and sculptures. Ask the students to find similarities and differences in the works being viewed. Look at other images that are present in the works. Why did the artists include them? What are the moods of the works? How do the art works make the students feel? What do they tell the students about farm life, both now and in the past?
Look at pictures in reference books of farm life in other countries. Is there anyone who can come and talk to the class about farm life in another country?
Paint a group mural of farm animals.
Make a farm animal collage from magazine pictures, either as a group project or as individual projects.
Create a learning centre matching game by having students draw and cut out a variety of objects that can be matched with specific farm animals. For example, a milk pail and a glass of milk could be matched with a cow; an egg and a chicken house with a hen. Students can keep adding to the game by drawing and cutting out more and more objects.
Make simple farm animal puppets (e.g., sock or paper bag puppets).
Project silhouettes of toy farm animals with a projector. Look at the shapes. Draw around them and cut them out. Have students think about the texture of the animals; decorate the shapes with wool, fur, or fabric.
3. Concluding Activities
Have the students bring toy farm animals to school. Set up a farm display. Build a farm yard using Lego, boxes, toys, and found objects.
Display the students' art work.
Have another look at some of the art works examined early in the mini-unit. Do students have anything they would like to add to what they said earlier now that they have done some art works of their own?
Teacher Note:
The topic Farm Animals might not be appropriate for all classrooms. Substitute a theme that has meaning for your students; for example, Animals of the North. The point is that many artists use their surroundings as a source of ideas. There are stories and activities on northern animals in Keepers of the Earth by M.J. Caduto and J. Bruchac. A Northern Alphabet by Ted Harrison and Inuit, Métis, and First Nation Artists , Saskatchewan Education, Northern Division are other possible resources.
At each grade, students should experience a mini-unit or unit of study that uses the work of an artist as its focal point. The artist selected depends on what resource material to which the teacher has access. The teacher could select a local artist, any Saskatchewan or Canadian artist, an artist from the Saskatchewan Art Works Kit, or an artist that has art historical significance (Picasso, for example). It is important to choose an artist whose work will be of interest to the students, or students may choose from a selection presented by the teacher.
Remember that, although resources at hand might be limited, this unit should include research. Consult with your school and/or community library staff. The class and/or teacher can write to art galleries for information and order books on interlibrary loan. Some art galleries have slides that can be sent out on loan to teachers and inexpensive exhibition catalogues that can be purchased. Many artists and art galleries have Internet websites with images and biographical information. Periodicals such as Canadian Art are also sources of biographical information and colour reproductions.
The following is one way that an artist study mini-unit can be conducted. This suggestion uses the work of contemporary Canadian artist Mary Pratt – in particular, her paintings of fruit, food, and other objects found in kitchens. Any artist of interest to the students could be substituted for the artist suggested here.
Sample Topic: "Mary Pratt"
Suggested Resources:
Teacher Note:
As many of the artists selected for artist study units do not specifically produce works for children, some of their images may not be appropriate for young students. Teachers need to screen books before making them available for students to view unsupervised and to screen videos before showing them to the class.
Preparation
Order any materials needed ahead of time. Write to galleries, if necessary. Search the Internet.
Starter List of Activities
1. Introductory Activities
Discuss what happens in a kitchen. Ask the students to list things often seen in a kitchen.
Have students go through magazines and cut out pictures of everything they might find in a kitchen. Discuss the pictures and then save them in a file folder or envelope.
Read a storybook that has a kitchen-related theme and illustrations.
Look at a few examples of historical still life paintings. Ask the students to guess why the artists might have chosen to paint still life compositions.
2. Main Activities
Introduce the work of Mary Pratt. As with any viewing activities, use a process such as one of those included in this curriculum guide (page 45).
Ask the students where they think Mary Pratt gets her ideas for her work. Discuss how she uses her own surroundings as a source of ideas.
Discuss the elements of art that stand out in Mary Pratt's work. What colours does she use? What shapes? If the students could feel any of the objects in the paintings, what would they feel like?
Involve the students in some form of research to learn more about Mary Pratt, her life, and her work. At the grade 1 level, it might be as basic as having the students come up with three or four questions to which they would like answers (e.g., where Mary Pratt lives). The teacher could then help the students find the answers in such sources as books and exhibition catalogues, or on the Internet.
Have the students work in small groups of four or five. Ask each group to recreate a scene painted by Mary Pratt. For example, in her painting “Bags” (1971) the students see a cardboard box with several grocery bags. One bag is open and four or five oranges can be seen. The task is for students to gather the objects in the painting and assemble them. They may not be able to find objects that are exactly like the ones in the painting, but ask them to come as close as they can. They can bring objects from home, or the teacher can gather them ahead of time. Once students have assembled their objects, ask them to imagine they are Mary Pratt and to think about what is interesting in the “scene” they have assembled. Shine a flashlight on the scene. Does the light change anything? What stands out? Why do they think Mary Pratt chose to paint this scene? If any related quotations from Mary Pratt are available, read them to the students. Display the students' recreated scenes along with the reproductions of the paintings.
Have students use the pictures they cut from magazines to create their own collages of kitchen scenes. Ask them to think about the pictures they select for their collages and how they will put them together. Make sure magazines are available so students can search for additional pictures.
3. Concluding Activities
Choose one work by Mary Pratt. Have students respond to it as a class by suggesting descriptive words (e.g., soft, bright, red, jagged, and others). Have the students list as many words as possible as the teacher writes them on individual file cards or small pieces of paper. Put them in a hat. Draw several of them from the hat and put them together in random order to create a “found poem”. If there are enough words, create several different poems.
Invite an artist from the community to talk about where he or she gets ideas for art works.
Look again at historical still life paintings. Do the students see any similarities between them and those by Mary Pratt? Do they see any clues that tell them the works were painted in different time periods?
Teacher Note:
All communities have artists living in them. Contact the public art gallery in the centre nearest you. Ask for the names of artists your students might study. Galleries can also suggest ways of acquiring information about artists.