surrealism, Mythology & games!

Combining the Surrealists use of chance and the dream-like nature of mythology in a game unit seemed like a natural way to motivate and intrigue students in 3rd-7th grade.  They watched videos on Greek and Native American Mythology as well as the Surrealists.  They then made a gameboard in Google Slides with three categories: heads, torsos/arms and lowerbody/legs.  I let them choose any human or animal image to place in these, then they rolled a die to create sketches and make a final drawing with shading, or a monster out of clay.

 

Ecology unit: stained glass tree installation, endangered animals/insects & bird song project

In 3rd through 5th grades, students learned facts about global warming, watched a video on Danish-Icelandic artist, Olafur Eliasson’s,  Arctic Ice in Paris, did a warm up drawing icebergs on the computer and made a faux stained glass tree installation in the cafeteria. They also created endangered animal and insect paintings and drawings to highlight extinction issues after watching Lucienne Rickard’s Extinction Studies project in Tasmania where she drew extinct animals for over a year and then erased them in a poignant performance.  Older kids in middle school also made a mixed media project where they researched a bird on the Audubon website and added a creative song of choice.

Lesson Plan and Rubric

stained glass tree installation

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Endangered animals/insects

Students researched an endangered animal or insect and made a drawing or painting about that creature, using emphasis as an Element of Art. For the insects, they had the choice of using symmetry (after watching a video and linking it to their math projects) and folding it to make a surprise painting with tempera.

Birdsong Project

The kids in grades 3-7 first started by researching a bird on the Audubon website and answering some questions and adding a picture to their Google Doc.  Then they cut out and layered their bird using construction paper. In the background, they then added the habitat in that they researched and chose a song lyric to match their bird’s personality and habits.

Art observation

In grades, 3-5th in spring 2021, the kids played a few art games to get acclimated to school after being in distance learning so long. I had them play an art observation game where I chose a few Black artists like Alma Thomas and Virginia Chihota as well as Asian American artist, Yayoi Kusama, in order to have one person on each team describe the painting and the rest of the team try to paint what they hear. They competed against each other for points and had fun.

task box

This activity is based on Oliver Herring’s Task art project which involves audience in a form of social practice art.  Instead of performance art where the artist is the main focus and actor, Herring includes people as his raw materials, where they generate ideas for his work in the form of art parties where people are asked to make a task for others to do and carry out.

I asked the kids to make up drawing prompts for each other to do such as: draw a house that changes into something else, draw yourself performing on a stage and draw a loving wolf. This student-centered art project really involves the kids in creative ideas! They love it.