Are you ready to get paint everywhere? Are you ready for complete chaos? Are you ready to get creative? It's time to get inspired to plan some awesome art activities! In this post we'll talk about teaching approaches for teaching art as well as some great books to add to your art resource collection!
Art Lesson: When our school put on the Lion King Musical (I was the director of choreography), my class worked on creating silhouette art of animals on the savannah
My kids know how much I love art. So do my colleagues. I am usually the first stop when someone needs any kind of art supplies. My reusable tablecloths to catch all paint spills and protect tables (newspaper is so last millennium) are a hot commodity! But where do we get our ideas for art? Well, most of the time I use the teaching approach called Integrated Arts. If you're not familiar, let me tell you all about it.
Art lesson: A collaborative quilt for a cold winter day. We looked at line, shape, pattern and dots when creating these construction paper and tempera art pieces.
First, art integration is different than art enhancement, which I think most elementary teachers already do. Art enhancement is when you cover a Science unit, for example plants, and you have your students paint a picture of a flower. Not a bad idea at all, in fact, I'm all for it! By including an art activity in your Science unit, you are offering other ways for kids to demonstrate their learning and further their understanding. Awesome! What's even better?: Arts Integration.
Art Enhancement: During our Science unit on animal adaptations and food chains, we researched a food chain and created this art piece of the predator eating prey, who eats other prey or a plant.
Art Integration means to co-plan two different units (these could be any size units, it could even be a lesson really) while meeting curricular outcomes or learning objectives in both Art and the other subject area. Using the flower example above, during a plant unit in Science, we study the parts of plants, adaptations, soil composition, plant needs and so much more. In an art unit on painting, we might explore techniques with water colour (ie. wet on wet, wet on dry, salt or wax resist), choosing between acrylic and tempera paint depending on medium, size of brush, print making, mix-media, perspective, realism, pointillism, self reflection, analysis, understanding of art in the community (I can go on and on and on). So I begin to plan two units simultaneously, I decide what I want to focus on in Art and what I want to focus on in Science and I plan a variety of lessons that meet outcomes in either or both curricula with the idea of a final project (perhaps the flower painting) where they will demonstrate their understanding in both subject areas.
Art Integration: In a Social Studies unit about the geographic regions of Canada we also learned about creating murals (extending a small photo into a large painting), creating art collaboratively and mixing colours.
See the difference? Enhancement is great, but integration offers so many more learning opportunities. If you are trying to figure out which is which, think: "am I working towards a final goal that meets outcomes in Art AND the other subject area?" if yes, then that's integration. If you're just meeting art outcomes, then it's an art lesson or unit. If your real focus is enhancing another subject by teaching one or two art lessons, then it's probably art enhancement. If you're still trying to figure this all out, don't worry I have some more examples of all three below!
If you're starting to wonder "wasn't this post supposed to be about books...." don't worry, I'm getting to that! Today, I'm going to share some books with you that I think could fall anywhere between meeting Art outcomes to art enhancement to art integration, and I'll give you a few ideas of my own as well. Are you ready dive into some art? I am! (I always am.)
By: Simon Crack
This is a neat and unique book. It was created through abstract artwork or "splats" which the author then turned into imaginary creatures. Each page features a strange creature, it's name, species name (ex. thinkalotus, snarlalot) and a 1-3 sentence description about the species. The pictures are simple but bright in colour and often look funny or strange. I think that young children would find this book entertaining and enjoy looking at the pictures. I could see using this book as part of an art lesson or as a mentor text for writing a simple class book. I look forward to purchasing a copy for my classroom library and would recommend it to other teachers as well.
Art Integration: In Science we learned about types of bridges. In art we learned about water colour technique and silhouettes. We created our own bridges, described how they are designed and created these beautiful art pieces.
By: Helen Tanner
This is a sweet book about a bunny named Oscar who feels lonely on Earth and really wants to visit the moon. He tries very hard but walking there and climbing a tree to get there don't seem to work. When he eventually does make his way to the moon he meets a bunny and falls in love. The illustrations are really neat, they almost look like pastel on a textured paper or something like that. I could see using the illustrations as an introduction to an art lesson or for inspiration. I also love that the font is fairly large and easy to read, this is important for young readers. There are also only a few lines per page which will be great for beginning readers to not get too overwhelmed. I would recommend this book to parents and teachers of children in the age 3-8 range.
Art Integration: In Math we learned about symmetry. In Art we also learned about symmetry (haha!) as well as a variety of painting, drawing and pastel techniques, we created 5 different art pieces. In Science we learned about butterflies and their adaptations. We chose our favourite pieces to put on our art board (analysis and reflection in art).
By: Jamie Michalak
This rhyming picture book tells the story of a lemon trying to find a party but he stumbles upon lots of strange scenes on the way. The illustrations in this book are really unique, they are made up of a variety of real objects as well as clay and paper objects put together with backdrops as well as what appears to be some natural outdoor photos. It really shows that anything can be used to make something else, to create art and to tell a story. I would use this book as an inspiration for lessons on photography and art. The story is random and fun and I think that kids would enjoy it. Definitely a unique and interesting book that I would recommend parents and teachers of children in the age 3-10 range check out!
Art Integration: In Art we learned about mosaics, in French we learned vocabulary for fruits and how to use simple sentences to express preference ex. "I like pears" or "I do not like apples". We created these mosaics of fruits we like and wrote short sentences in French to demonstrate our understanding in both subject areas.
Pippin Paints a Portrait
By: Charlotte Mei
This is a fabulous picture book about an artistic dog who paints pictures in the style of a variety of famous artist such as matisse and picasso. There are colourful pictures, including the pictures of the paintings Pippin has created as well as 1-3 lines of text per page. The book ends with details about the author as well as the famous artists represented in the story. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who teaches art in the K-4 grade range as well as parents of aspiring little artists. I could definitely see this book being an introduction to a unit on famous artists in my Grade 3 class, much like the units on Famous artists I've done in the past (check out the gallery below).
By: Najah Jabbar
This is a fun story about shapes. The story starts off with a child drawing an animal which is supposed to be a dog. The animal disagrees and feels much more like a sheep. After much disagreement, Izzy finally relents and lets the sheep be a sheep. This book is highly creative and imaginative and I think it would be really intriguing for young readers. I could definitely see using this book as a mentor text for an activity on shape, creative writing and art. Seeing the world in different perspectives is an important skill in the early years and I think that this book would be a great starting point for lessons on being imaginative and creative. I would recommend this book to parents and teachers of creative little people in the age 4-10 range. I look forward to picking up a copy for my class soon!
Art lesson + Art enhancement: We studied papier mache techniques and created doughnuts. In ELA we wrote persuasive paragraphs convincing our parents at conferences (authentic audience) to buy our delicious new doughnut flavours!
By: Aditi Oza
This beautifully illustrated picture book tells the story of a little girl and her family who live in the Kutch region of India. The book is filled with traditional clothing and artwork which introduces readers to the culture of the people in this region as well as a bit about their history. The author explains in her note at the end that she grew up not far from this region and admires the culture and beautiful crafts of the people. I think this is a great book to use as an opportunity to teach children about other cultures and to appreciate the beautiful art created by different people around the world. I would recommend this book to teachers and families of children in the age 4-9 range.
Arts Integration: During our SS unit on Ancient Egypt we learned about Egyptian culture including beliefs about after life and gods. In Art we studied papier mache techniques (see above). We created canopic jars to demonstrate our understanding in both subject areas.
By: Elly MacKay
I've already posted about this amazing book when I discussed great books for STEM and in this case, inquiry, but I have to share it here as well because I used it as inspiration for a fabulous Arts Integration unit this spring. In the Clouds is a book about a curious little girl who wants to know more about the world around her. Perfect for a teacher introducing inquiry and question formulation, or families of inquisitive children always asking why, this book models questions and the idea that questions lead to more questions. Additionally, this book lends well to a study of clouds or weather, from terminology like cumulus as well as questions (and answers) about how clouds form, I could see this book being an introduction to science units across the grade levels. The story ends with a few pages of information about the questions in the book as well as about weather and clouds, but I also feel this type of book would spark curiosity in students and encourage them to go beyond these questions and answers to create their own questions and search for the answers through the inquiry process. While this book is probably best fit for grades 1-4 I could see using this with older and younger students as weather is part of many middle years science curriculums and preschool children love to ask why to everything around them!
How I used In the Clouds during an unit that features Arts Integration
In Science we studied Light and Sound and did an inquiry about how movies are made. We asked local experts questions about sound effects (and foley), lighting techniques and more. In ELA we read books by Robert Munsch and Elly Mackay. We looked for similarities in Robert Munsch's books to learn about his writing style. We read Elly Mackay's books and wondered how she illustrated them (Art). We visited her website and watched Elly Mackay's videos about paper theatres and learned how to make our own. In Drama we learned about actors, acting skills, directors, puppetry and readers theatre scripts. In Art we also learned about perspective including foreground, background and middle ground, something that Elly Mackay's theatres definitely have. We put this all together to create scripts in the style of Robert Munsch. Using puppets, lighting and foley techniques we created movies set in paper theatres (Elly Mackay) and showcased them with authentic audiences (children): other students in our school. Using a mixture of Project based learning, Inquiry based learning and Arts Integration approaches, we met outcomes in Science, ELA and Art/Drama and we learned A LOT.
Arts Integration: Two still shots from our movies
Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for giving me the opportunity to read and review these wonderful books! Amazon links (or Goodreads) for each of the books are hyperlinked, just click the title.
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