I received an email from a reader who was having trouble figuring out how to structure her art curriculum. These types of questions are not easy to answer as developing an art curriculum is personal stuff and they take a long time to answer! I have my way of creating a curriculum, but another teacher may be required to do things a little differently. But I do like to help, and for the benefit of all readers, I am posting Janice’s question so that we can all help her out.
Dear Patty,
I have 9 sessions (1.5 hours/session) of art workshop, the first 7 are for drawing and painting and the last 2 are for sculpture and/or collage. What I’m having difficulty with right now are the first 7 sessions. I cannot seem to limit the drawing and painting elements and techniques I should teach to and focus on with 7-12 year olds. 7 sessions is quite short!
So, here is my plan. Please tell me if the pacing is too fast or too slow. Or if the targets are not appropriate for the age level. Maybe I missed some important techniques or the sequence is incorrect. And I would also appreciate if you could link me to activities on your website that I could use for my daily target. I already have activity ideas, but I’m always looking for something better. If I need to scrap everything, do not hesitate to let me know as well!
Day 1 – Do I focus on lines and shapes?
Day 2 – Is light and shadow next? Can I ask them to sketch already from a photo or a real life object?
Day 3 – Is it appropriate to teach them perspective at this stage and given their age? Does optical illusion go with this?
Day 4 – Would they be ready for color and value now?
Day 5 – Painting techniques with watercolor
Day 6 – Painting techniques with oil
Day 7 – Portraiture?
I really appreciate this, Patty. Thank you so much!
Janice
Elements to consider
From the information Janice gave me, she has 9 sessions at 1.5 hours each. That’s a good amount of time to introduce a lesson, teach and complete it. Janice has already informed me that the children in her class will range from 7-12 years old. That’s a big range and a big challenge. What Janice needs is simple lessons that can be completed in under 90 minutes and be adaptable for a wide age range. This is not easy, so I would recommend that Janice be prepared to teach the lesson in a simple manner and then provide more detailed instruction for the older kids.
So here are the lessons I would recommend (Janice’s suggestion/query in blue, my suggestion in black)
Day 1 – Do I focus on lines and shapes? Yes. Lines and Shapes are a fast and easy warm-up for all grade levels. You will want to pick something that can be created by both 1st graders and 6th graders without anyone feeling to challenged or worse, bored! I like Miro Line Drawings and Miro Paintings. My Line plus Color equals Fun PDF has good lessons that combine line with color, so think about doing a line drawing then adding color.
Day 2 – Is light and shadow next? Can I ask them to sketch already from a photo or a real life object? For this session you could focus on coloring or painting the line drawing from session one, or moving into a new lesson. Shading is a big step, especially for the little ones.
If you want to do a new lesson, try a tempera painting lesson that features a subject that is easily scaleable. For example; a fish, bird or flowers. Younger and older kids can do the same subject, technique and medium but the details in the drawing will be varied. Take a look at my Royal Pooches. This lesson demonstrates how Kinders can do the same lessons as third graders.
Day 3 – Is it appropriate to teach them perspective at this stage and given their age? Does optical illusion go with this? You would be better off not to. Younger grades would find it challenging. There are so many other projects that you could do that are better suited for a one-time art class. Instead I would pick a paper-focused lesson like some from African Art or Fun with Paper. Remember, each lesson that I suggest includes multiple skills and techniques.
Day 4 – Would they be ready for color and value now? Yup. But be careful. You won’t get the same results with seven year olds as you would with older kids. I recently did a value lesson with kinders and with a little adjustment, older kids could embellish the very same projects.
Day 5 – Painting techniques with watercolor I would put a watercolor lesson on day two. Watercolors are easy and fun to do. I have dozens of great watercolor lessons that you could pick from. Every grade level has a good selection. Take a look at my selection of watercolor projects.
Day 6 – Painting techniques with oil. Another very easy medium to work with. The trick here is to pick a subject that can be scaled down for the younger children. My Van Gogh Flowers are a perfect choice. I love doing this lesson with oil pastels. You could also do your portrait lesson here and use oil pastels as the coloring medium. You could teach a scaled portrait lessons and everyone use oil pastel. My Fun with Portraits booklet is perfect for this.
Day 7 – Portraiture? Yes. See Day 6. Portraits in oil pastel might take longer than 90 minutes to teach and complete. You could also use part of this day to catch up on any projects that you didn’t complete. It’s important to factor this in. You don’t want any of your lessons to be too hard that the children don’t finish any of the projects.
Can anyone else make suggestions for janice? What considerations do you put into place when creating and planning your art curriculum?
And while we are talking about curriculums, I am in the process of working on an eCourse that will give you an art curriculum and will teach you all the techniques that go along with it! It’s going to a fabulous course and I’m over-the-moon about it. I will have two course dates; one in late June/early July and the other session will be in September. More detail to come!!!!
I would do color and value before I would do light and shadow. I would also consider doing one lesson on color and a separate lesson on value and eliminate the light and shadow all together. Like Patty said- those are more difficult concepts for that age group than color. In my experience they just don’t get highlights, light sources and shadow direction. And honestly, there is so much to learn about color that you could probably do color all 7 days and they would learn something new each day! Good luck!!
If you want to introduce them to perspective, I would just do a very introductory concept of space, showing how placement and size affect our perception of space. This would actually be a great concept to teach with a paper collage project (in that third day where Patty suggested it) using a subject in multiple sizes, cut out and placed in fore, mid and background. Overlapping is the first and easiest concept to develop space, and makes more sense to little artists when they are literally overlapping cut-out subjects.
Patty,
I so admire your willingness to help beginning teachers with their curriculum mapping. It is a LOT of work, especially when you have your teaching responsibilities and more importantly your family to consider. You give unselfishly to all who seek your counsel and I applaud you for that. Your e-courses sound like fun and I’ll bet even an old dog like me could learn a new thing or two!
I find a lesson on portraits is good as a follow on to lines and shapes and forms. Proportion is something I find young learners struggle with and this shows them how looking at relationships between lines and shapes can make things look realistic or not. This lesson gives them a huge amount of confidence. I also do teach perspective but not in the formal way – again relationships, size, overlap, position on paper, detail etc. and we do a landscape.
Another class I normally do is on 3D form drawings which introduces perspective as well.
I don’t vigorously plan out a curriculum with unit plans, but maybe that is because I’m not required to turn in unit plans to my principals. I am a 1st year teacher, and I loosely base my lessons around art concepts. I’ev even been known to change an entire lesson at the last second before the group comes in, and it goes pretty well too!
For Color theory I first taught the Colorwheel, then complementary colors, and then we went into value scales using Starry Nights as the inspiration.
I have found that value scales are even challenging for 3rd-5th graders. Even after showing them step bystep how to create one, they are really struggling. So, I’d have to agree with other posters here that going into shadows/ light sources/ highlights etc would probably be too much for that age group.
This is mostly how I work as well! You are probably right about not having a set of standards or expectations to submit or follow. It’s a gift, I think. Thanks for your comment.
Patty, thank you so much for this detailed feedback. I am now in the process of “fine tuning” my short-term art curriculum.
I also see that you’ve created a wonderful, supportive community here. Thank you for all your suggestions. I was really at a loss. All I had before were may passion and creativity. No formal training whatsoever. Now, I have a better understanding of art education for kids. Thank you!!!
The art program will start next week. I will deliver it two times: one for a private institution and another one for a disadvantaged community. A lot of children will benefit from this. I will document my experiences and the things I’ve learned and I will share them all with you. Once again, thank you!!!
Sincerely,
Janice
P.S.
Yes, I want to continue learning. So, Patty, count me in on your eCourse!
I was very pleased to find this web site & information with practical lessons in a logic sequence that I can apply to my classes of Special Needs students of varying abilities & ages. Thanks.
I always start with elements/principles as well as benchmarks and standards. Then I decide what and how to focus on my goals. After that, it is very personal as to what you and your students enjoy, what materials you have, time allowances, etc. For my students, each class roster can mandate what we do. I have to “mix it up” for different classes sometimes even though they are on the same grade level. My biggest challenge this year was third grade at the end of the day. They lose a little time for dismissal/clean up and are just “done” at the end of the school day!
Dropping in from UPB13 and love your site. Although I have done a lot of guided crafts, I am a fan of teaching real art skills. Do you know the Reggio Emilia approach to education?
Do you teach all of the elements and principles to each level?