Unit Lesson Plan

Unit Plan for Saturday Art:

Change - Growth

 

Thematic Summary:

Students understand and connect with the big idea of change through learning about natural changes in the environment around them. Students are constantly surrounded by change both in nature, the environment, the people around them, and within themselves. These changing experiences can inspire negative or positive  growth and it is important to learn to identify and come to terms with the changes that constantly and naturally occur throughout life. Students will focus on themes of growth in the environment around them.

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Students will investigate change, specifically through the themes of nature, the plant life, animal cycles, weather, and seasonal changes that occur. Allowing students to understand and become comfortable with change by introducing changes that occur in a fairly predictable manner. Beginning with identifying the naturally occurring changes in the environment they are familiar with and resulting in an understanding of the ways in which they might change. The students will learn about natural changes and cycles that they can observe in the environment. Thinking in this manner challenges students to observe and become aware of the environment around them and begin to reflect on why these changes occur and the feelings that accompany change. Investigating nature relative to change also introduces opportunities for students to accept change in themselves.

 

Essential Questions:

1. What does change mean?

2. What in nature changes?

3. Why does change take place?

4. Why is change essential?

 

General Objectives:

Students will……

• Investigate and observe changes in nature to collaboratively prepare work of art (Va:Cr Anchor Standard 2).

• Utilize art vocabulary when describing their art (Va:Cr Anchor Standard 3).

• Compare images of cycles in nature that are representative of change (Va:ReAnchor Standard 7).

• Create works of art about the changing environment in their community (Va:Cn Anchor Standard 11).

 

Developmental Stage:

Pre-schematic stage (4-7), at this developmental stage students are consciously creating with control and thinking in relation to their environment. During this stage students are making connections between images and ideas and assign meaning to drawing shapes. So, shapes become symbols.

Schematic stage (7-9), at this developmental stage students are making connections between an image and an idea, assigning meaning to symbols, and they use schemas and stereotypes. During this stage students will use exaggeration and distortion when drawing the human figure. They will also repeat a schema for a person. 

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Lesson Plan:

 Lily Pad Ponds

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Lesson Summary:

In groups of 3-4, students will create large scale ponds with lily pads, lotus flowers, and cattails. They will collaborate to paint their pond shades of blues and greens. Students will also individually create water lily flowers, lily pads, and cattails, but they will have to determine amongst themselves where they will put their creations within the pond. They will discuss what life dwells in a pond and the ecosystem needs.  

 

Specific Objectives:

Students will:

• Collaborate in small groups to plan and design their pond.

• Discuss characteristics of a pond ecosystem and what plant lives in this environment.

• Demonstrate effort and attention to details while creating. 

 

Materials:

Acrylic paint, large sheets of paper, construction paper, paper plates, scissors, glue, pencils. 

 

Instructional Aides:

Lily pads, slideshow, demo materials, and examples. 

 

Vocab:

Lily flower and pads, pond, Monet.

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Pre-class Prep:

• Make ‘pond’ and lily pads for students to jump from. 

• Pond sounds playing in the background.

• Demo material and example piece out and ready.

• Pond paper circles cut and ready to be passed out. 

• Screen on with the slides ready. 

• Materials ready for distribution.

• Name tags at seats. 

 

Motivation:

• Invite students into the classroom, have them leap over the ‘pond’ from lily pad to lily pad over to the circle area. 

• Invite students to discuss what they noticed, saw, and heard in the ‘pond’.

• Give a brief presentation about plant life in the pond and examples of Monet’s famous water lilies. 

• Introduce the art activity.

• Bring students to the demo area and go through step by step instructions and procedures. 

• Ask students to repeat the steps and procedures back to you.

• Dismiss back to seats, each table is an assigned group.

• Ask for volunteers to pass out materials.

• Pass out large circular paper and paint. 

 

Art Activity:

• Students will collaborate to paint their pond.

• While the paint dries, they will cut and color lily pads with paper plates, lily flowers, and cattails with construction paper.

• They will then come together and determine where they want to place the plants within their pond and name their pond.

 

Clean Up:

• With 15-20 minutes left in class, begin cleanup.

• Each group member will be assigned a different role.

• When each group finishes cleaning up they will sit silently at their table. If time allows they will be able to play a game before dismissal.  

 

Critique and Assessment:

• Students will take turns showing their ponds to the class and tell the name and why they chose that name.

• Brief rubric grading and analyzing, effort, improvement of skills, neatness/aesthetics, conceptual choices, and participation in critique and reflection. 

  • Effort: 1-10

  • Improvement of skills: 1-10

  • Neatness/ Aesthetics: 1-10

  • Conceptual choices: 1-10

  • Participation in critique: 1-5

  • Reflection: 1-5

  • Total points: 50

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References:

How to grow water lilies. RHS Gardening. (n.d.). www.rhs.org.uk/plants/waterlilies/growing-guide

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Reflection:

Saturday Art Week 7 

April 1st, 2024 

 

The students created lily pad ponds in groups of 3-4, inspired by the famous french painter Claude Monet. They used acrylic paint and collage construction paper and paper plates on top of their group pond. They first painted their pond together and then individually crafted their lily pads out of paper plates. Finishing up by drawing, cutting, and gluing additional details such as cattails, frogs, fish, lotus flowers, etc. Students are working on developing their collaborative skills as they work together to paint the pond and to make creative decisions related to the plants and animals they wish to include within their ecosystem.

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Within the classroom, positivity, creativity, and fun are always encouraged, starting with me. I seek to be a role model for my students and how I want them to behave and treat each other. I am always sure to compliment students who are outstanding, whether that be creatively or in the way they are kind and helpful to their classmates. I have many great students in my class that are role models for their peers and make my job a little less stressful. 

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To better build a relationship with each and every student I first make myself vulnerable, giving them opportunities to find similarities or interests with me. Students are able to express themselves in class with their artwork and with the questions asked during the motivation. Amongst each other the students have done an amazing job of connecting, almost everyone is friends, or at the very least respectful of each other. I also ask lots of questions. During the art activity I am always walking around and asking personal questions or critical questions about the work and their decisions. 

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The lily pad pond project was super engaging for the students, I have found that they flourish during group projects. Successfully building off of each other's ideas and experiments with the limitations they were given in terms of materiality. The students did a great job of finding meaning in their work, they were so creative with the animals and plants they created. Students were even making sculptural and 3D work with the construction paper, which was so cool and impressive. In terms of the personal connections  there were not too many, I just asked them to make animals and plants based on what they know and have experienced in their own lives. However, they still had an abundance of creative freedom that they most definitely made the most of. They did so great with this project and I am very proud of them. 

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The motivation is when I spent the most amount of time getting student responses to promote deep thinking and understanding. They were asked to think about the question, talk to their partner, and then share with the group. However, throughout the activity I am constantly walking around and asking questions and proposing ideas for students to deepen their work and understanding. The students always have choices throughout the projects, but I do try to challenge them. I do so by limiting their options, so they have to overcome those challenges to be innovative and they have done a great job in doing so. 

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If I did this again I would actually do the remotivation that I built into the lesson for myself. On Saturday I just simply did not have the time, when we got back to class from the bathroom break we only had 10-12 minutes to finish up our trees before cleaning up. So, I did not get to do it but the tree activity still went well. I need to work on my cleanup process a little more too. I usually find myself rushing around, the students either rush to clean up or just keep working on their work instead of cleaning up. If I redid this I would assign a specific job to each table member for the week and have a better reward for the first table done. 

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