Topic: A visual arts lesson that features a class paper mural of a farm setting that is constructed through a collaboration of students' plant, animal, and building forms.
Component Objectives:
Artistic Perception: Students will visualize a farm setting as described by the teacher and share the animals, plants, and/or buildings they imagined. Students will use the lesson vocabulary in their explanation and description of their mural.
Creative Expression: Each student will design the animals and settings for the class mural he or she found on the visual journey to a farm through the cutting, tearing, pasting, and coloring of colored paper. Each student will contribute to the creation of the mural by determining and placing constructed paper forms in an appropriate location on the kraft paper.
Rationale: The arts develop the students' abilities to think, observe, create, organize thoughts and feelings, assess critically, and respond in predictable and unpredictable ways. The arts provide opportunities for students to use their imaginations. Visualizing and designing constructed paper forms fosters the students' imagination, validates their creative expression, and builds cooperation among the students through the creation of a class mural.
Strategy: Inquiry and Direct Teaching
Vocabulary:Landscape, journey, mural, overlap
Landscape - a picture that looks like a natural scenery
Journey - travel from one place to another
Mural- art that is attached or put on the wall
Overlap - to cover a part of; extend over
Procedures Introduction: The teacher will begin by telling the students that he/she is going to take them on a journey (define) to a different place. Ask the students to close their eyes and imagine that they are a feather lying on the ground in the play yard. You feel a light breeze (wind) carry you up into the beautiful sky. You begin to float through the air, looking below you to see the green hills. You smell the clean scent of healthy grass that has just been cut as you begin to float closer to the ground. You feel the warm breeze against you skin and the hot sun beating against your face. There is something ahead! You look. It seems like some sort of building and ...is that a pond? Yes...a dark blue pond with many birds swimming and catching fish. There's something else. Are those animals? Yes...there are many different kinds of animals. It is a farm!
As you get closer, you smell the dusty roads leading to the farm. You breath in the smell of the animals in their pens. You begin to slowly float down to the ground until your feet begin to sink into the ground. You feel the warm, soft ground below your feet and you look up to find yourself standing among many dairy cows and their calves. They are much taller than you. You can barely see over their bodies. You look toward the barn and a calf (baby cow) happily comes up to you. The softness of its fur feels nice between your fingers. You look around and you see many more animals and other buildings. You hear the sounds these animals make. Then you see a group of trees in the distance. You begin to walk toward them to block yourself from the hot sun and ...SWOOP...you are carried off by the wind. As you sail away from that beautiful farm, you take one more long look at the beautiful landscape or the picture of the natural scene and the many beautiful things you saw on your journey or trip. You slowly float back down and open your eyes to see that you are back in your classroom, safe and sound.
Follow the visual journey with a brainstorming activity by organizing the animals, plants, and buildings that they discovered through their journey. Write down all of the different things that the children share with the group. Explain that they are going to create one thing that they saw on their journey and they will contribute that piece of art to the farm mural by placing their constructed paper form on the bulletin board. Introduce the material that will be used to create their constructed paper forms. The materials include colored construction paper, glue, crayons and scissors. Show an example how to create a constructed paper form of a tree by using the techniques of cutting, tearing, and coloring. Continue by pasting it on the mural. Explain that objects can overlap or cover up to hide animals or other objects in order add surprises to their mural. The bulletin board is prepared with the colors representing the land and sky to aid students in their placement of their constructed paper forms. Ask each child to share what he or she is going to create with a partner.
Activity Sequence:
1. Ask children to begin their animal, building, or plant form that they have chosen from their visual journey. After children have begun initial construction paper forms, distribute paste and crayons.
2. As they finish their constructed paper form, have children go to the kraft paper. Individually, ask the students where they want to put their form and why it should go in that spot.
3. As the mural begins to fill, encourage children to look at their landscape. Discuss repeated animals, plants, and buildings. Have them focus on overlapping and the differences found in the creation of the same animal. During this discussion, enforce that each child creates their own pictures in their mind when they are told a story or taken through a visual journey.
Closure:Once all of the students have created their constructed paper forms and pasted them to the mural, have the students look at the mural and ask them what kind of animals, plants, and buildings are in the mural. How many kinds of plants are there? Animals? Buildings? Are there any surprises in their landscape? If so, what are they and where are they? If not, ask they what they could do to add a surprise to their landscape. Where is there overlapping? Where would they like to take their friend on their farm? Finally, ask them if the farm looks like the farm they saw in their head. How is it the same? How does it differ?
Clean-up: Have each student put their reusable scraps in a bag and throw their garbage in the trash can. Have each student return crayons and glue to their holding bins.
Evaluation: The teacher will listen to the students verbally share the animals and objects found on a farm that they saw during the visualization. The teacher will visually check for completed constructed paper forms representing what the student saw during the visualization and note tearing, pasting and cutting techniques used in the design. The teacher will listen for students' explanation of where they want to put their constructed paper form and why it should go in that location. The teacher will listen for appropriate use of new vocabulary in their explanations. If children finish early, have them continue on a new constructed paper form.
Materials/ Preparation:
Crayons
Construction Paper
Scissors
Glue
A Sample Constructed Paper Form of a Tree
A Constructed Landscape Made of Kraft Paper