Overview of Art Curriculum

  

Elementary Art Curriculum

 

      In elementary art, we work with themes and big ideas as a guide for each unit. For example, some themes may be “dinosaurs”, “self-portraits”, or “hybrid animals”. A big idea may be “healing”, “place”, or “time”.  I try to make almost every lesson interdisciplinary in some way.  Art processes and techniques are taught during each unit, but the actual idea and design is all of the student’s own thinking. I encourage students to break away from main-stream designs and symbols, and come up with something all their own. I also encourage something called reappropriation. This is an approach to making something that is already a symbol, icon, or famous work of art and recreating it in a completely different way. Artists often borrow other’s ideas and then transform them to create a new kind of meaning.

    I teach about the elements of design, which are line, color, shape, form, value, texture, and space. I also start teaching them about the principles of design, which is covered more thoroughly at the secondary level.  The principles of design are unity, variety, rhythm, proportion, repetition, pattern, movement, emphasis, and balance. 

   Each grade level learns about contemporary and historical art through-out the trimester that I have them. Students observe and discuss various aspects of the images; how these images make them feel; what they see; and what they like and dislike. The artists we use varies and sometimes in one unit they will view ten different pieces by ten different artists.  The goal is to expose them to as many different ways to create art as possible.  I believe art is a universal language and that the more visual language they can begin to interpret and understand, the more visually literate they will become.

      We do a lot of reflection in my class starting in 3rd grade.  I may ask them questions like, “What does your piece mean to you?”, “How did you come up with your idea?”, “What did you struggle with while making this?”, and “What do you like most about your work?”. I try to incorporate the teachings of a growth mindset into my curriculum.

           

 

    My curriculum also encompasses Studio Habits of Mind that were developed by the art education program at Harvard University.  You can find more about them on the following website.  https://www.studiothinking.org/the-framework.html  I have also attached a hand-out at the bottom that describes them.  

 

The following are the Colorado Art Education Standards that we use as a guide to make sure our lessons align with the state visual art goals.   

 

Observe and Learn to Comprehend

Use the visual arts to express, communicate, and make meaning. To perceive art involves studying art; scrutinizing and examining art; recognizing, noticing, and seeing art; distinguishing art forms and subtleties; identifying and detecting art; becoming skilled in and gaining knowledge of art; grasping and realizing art; figuring out art; and sensing and feeling art.

 

Envision and Critique to Reflect

Articulate and implement critical thinking in the visual arts by synthesizing, evaluating, and analyzing visual information. To value art involves visualizing, articulating, and conveying art; thinking about, pondering, and contemplating art; wondering about, assessing, and questioning art concepts and contexts; expressing art; defining the relevance, significance of, and importance of art; and experiencing, interpreting, and justifying the aesthetics of art.

 

Invent and Discover to Create

Generate works of arts that employ unique ideas, feelings, and values using different media, technologies, styles, and forms of expression. To make art involves creating, inventing, conceiving, formulating, and imagining art; communicating, ascertaining, and learning about art; building, crafting, and generating art; assembling and manufacturing art; discovering, fashioning, and producing art; and causing art to exist.

 

Relate and Connect to Transfer:

Recognize, articulate, and validate the value of the visual arts to lifelong learning and the human experience. To respond to art involves relating to art; connecting to art; personally linking to art; associating with art; bonding to art; moving toward art sensibilities; shifting to art orientations; thinking about art; attaching meaning to art; replying to art; reacting to art; internalizing art; personalizing art; and relating art to diverse cultures.