Unit Topic and Rationale
-UNIT DESCRIPTION-
Let's Tell a Story
Let's Tell a Story
This unit focuses on letting students create art that expresses who they are as well as allow them to explore materials that they might have worked with before and materials that are new to them.
-LESSON DESCRIPTIONS-
LESSON ONE: Let’s Get to Know Each Other!
In this lesson, students created a personal sketchbook cover as well as an individual puzzle piece that fit into a larger class puzzle. The concepts taught in this lesson included planning, ideation, and artistic intent. The students were given many art making materials that included acrylic paint, markers, oil pastels, and colored pencils. We wanted students to understand that art can be used as a way to express yourself to a viewer. The puzzle pieces were a way to talk to students about how we are all individuals but that we need to work together as a team to be successful.
LESSON TWO: Movements
Lesson two focused on the idea of movement. Students were to create a sculpture out of pipe cleaners that depicted an object or figure in motion. The concepts touched on in this lesson were three-dimensional, movement, shape, planning. The materials used for this lesson were pipe cleaners and acrylic paint. Before students started work on their sculptures they worked with a partner to paint in their sketchbooks what movement looked like when it was being done by someone. Some of the movements modeled for the paintings included running and walking a dog.
LESSON THREE: Moving into colors and painting
In this lesson students continued working with the idea of movement. During this lesson students were able to work in the gym/cafeteria of their school to create large scale paintings of a figure in motion. Some paintings included images of students riding bikes or scooters, while others included the playing of instruments. The concepts for this lesson included motion, movement, and color. Students worked mainly with acrylic paint for this lesson.
LESSON FOUR: Transportation
This lesson gave students the opportunity to create transportation of the future. It gave students the opportunity to explore found objects and to create new kinds of objects out of ordinary, everyday objects and to tell stories about what they made. The concepts for this lesson were movement, motion, transportation, form and technique. Students used fund objects such as recycled food containers, buttons, fabric, hair curlers, and feathers to create their found object transportation sculptures.
LESSON FIVE: Transportation/Houses
This lesson was a continuation of the previous lesson. Students continue work with found object sculptures, and this week they created houses out of found objects. The concepts for this lesson included form and planning. Students drew houses in their sketchbooks before starting work on their sculptures. The materials for the lesson were fund objects such as recycled food containers, buttons, fabric, hair curlers, and feathers. After the houses were finished the students were able to share stories about the houses they had just made.
LESSON SIX: Favorite Food
In this lesson students were given the opportunity to work with clay. The lesson focused on students creating their favorite food out of the clay and to then tell a story about the sculpture they had made during class and why it was their favorite food. Concepts for this lesson included expression, emotion, observation, improvisation, shape, and technique. Materials for this lesson were oil pastels for planning in their sketchbooks, and clay for the sculpture building. Since clay was fairly new to the students, students were given a demo on clay building techniques.
LESSON SEVEN: Halloween Centers
This lesson was a lesson where we had students focus more on the stories they were wanting to tell rather than focus on one material for the class period, so there were five centers that the students worked at for this lesson. The centers included mono-printing, modeling clay, ideation, found object sculptures, and painting. Mono-printing was a new art making technique for the students so there was a demo on how to create a mono-print. Concepts for this lesson included choice, centers, experimentation, two-dimensional, three-dimensional.
LESSON EIGHT: A Time I was Happy
This lesson had students think about and tell stories about times they were happy. The processes they used to create their images about being happy were mono-printing and Styrofoam plate relief printing. The concepts for this lesson were emotion, choice, centers, and storytelling. The materials included plexi-glass, markers, Styrofoam plates, and rolling ink. Relief printing was new for the students, so this lesson included a demo on the process.
LESSON NINE: Artist Trading Cards
This lesson had students create their own trading cards. Each student was given some card stock and found objects to create their trading card. The students were to include subject matter that would describe them to viewers. The concepts for this lesson are artist intent and expression. Along with the card stock students used markers, paint, and oil pastels.
For documentation and ore descriptions of these lessons please visit http://kreativekindergarten2015.weebly.com/
For documentation and ore descriptions of these lessons please visit http://kreativekindergarten2015.weebly.com/
-RELEVANCE-
-SIGNIFICANCE-
GLOBALLY
GLOBALLY
Our unit allowed students to express themselves through storytelling and exploration of materials. Storytelling is a focusing lens that allows everyone to create and feel like their voice is being heard. Although stories can be similar, no two stories are ever exactly the same. Exploration of materials is globally significant because exploration is the key to growth. Light bulbs would not have been invented without exploration, cars were made through exploration, and airplanes were also made through exploration. Many of the items we take for granted today were made through exploration. This is why exploration is a key part of our unit plan and lesson plans.
FOR THIS POPULATION
Exploration is important for this population, Kindergartners, because exploration is the best way to learn. Kindergartners are not as interested in making art that looks exactly like what they are referencing. They are more interested in just playing with the materials. Storytelling comes along with that. Their stories are a way for them to share what they are thinking as they create.