Box Sculpture and Youth Art Month

Lesson Plan Submitted by: Peggy Bennett,
Elementary art teacher at Marrington Elementary in Goose Creek, SC.
Grades: 1st - 2nd

 

Procedure:

At the 1997 NAEA conference in New Orleans, one of the sessions was on box sculpture. This would be a great activity for first or second graders. Simply, each child paints a box using primary colors. This may take as long as an hour depending on the size of the box.

 

The next lesson students learn how to mix secondary colors. Secondary colors are provided for them to paint patterns, lines or designs on the boxes. The boxes are then taped closed.

 

The final activity is having the students create one large sculpture using all the boxes. Students add their box one at a time. Walk around it, take it apart and do it again. In the end they each have their own box to take home. Very age appropriate activity and a nice introduction to 3D art and sculpture.

 

Materials:

• Tempera Paint of primary and secondary colors
  

• Brushes
  

• paint shirts
  

• boxes

Resources

Books

Primary Cats - Features three cats, one red, one blue, and one yellow, who meet. Each time they touch, their colors blend to make the appropriate secondary color. When Red and Blue shake, for example, their paws turn purple.

 

Let's Play Colours - Let's Play Colours features Wallace the teddy bear and his friends learning about colours. Illustrated with brightly coloured felt/collage illustrations.

 

Student Teaching

Lesson Plan Submitted by: Judith Walsh
Elementary art teacher at Mt. Zion Elementary Suffolk, VA
Grades: 4th & 5th Talented Art

 

Procedure:

Every March we celebrate Youth Art Month! To help us celebrate, I have my Talented Art students act as "Student Teachers!" My students look forward to this every year, students and "teachers"! I let them vote on whether they want to teach for 1 week or 2. Always, it's 2 weeks! They pick their classes at random and then they must write a lesson plan for that class.

 

I video tape them while they teach and when they are finished, we critique their work. My students learn so much from this activity. They see, first hand, that teaching is hard work and I think they leave having more appreciation for the teaching profession. Also, many of them want to be Art teachers!! If you try this lesson, you will be pleasantly surprised!

 

Materials:

Video camera (Can use a cell phone camera if they are allowed in your school), and materials specified by students.

 

Resources

Youth Art Month lesson: An article from: Arts & Activities - This digital document is an article from Arts & Activities, published by Thomson Gale on March 1, 2003.

 

Links

Youth Art Month- A page of resources by the Council for Art Education, Inc.