The Art Concepts Your Children are Learning in Grades K-2
Ruth Suyenaga, Art Teacher
In planning lessons, I use the state Arts Curriculum Standards and the Gardner Public Schools Art Curriculum Standards as sources of the basic elements and principles of art that should be taught in grades K-2. (Note: grade 3 classes left Waterford Street School in 2004-2005 and are now placed at Elm Street School). I then develop lessons that teach the elements and principles at each grade level in a way that is age-appropriate, developmental, and builds on prior knowledge.
Through the years, students develop knowledge of skills, concepts and art vocabulary so that they will be prepared for the upper elementary (grades 3-5) art curriculum. I use a variety of media and weave art history and appreciation into lessons that focus on perceptual development. Assessment is ongoing in the classes, using artwork as authentic assessment.
Many times, the art, music and physical education teachers teach a concept simultaneously …for instance, when the I teach about types of line (zigzag, curvy, straight, etc), the physical education teacher may be teaching a unit about pathways or the music teacher may be teaching about melody. Beside this collaboration of specialists, I create many interdisciplinary lessons with classroom teachers, such as the topographical maps of the major rivers and mountains of the world that second graders create in art class to reinforce geography concepts that are tested on the MCAS. Science concepts such as the life cycle of the butterfly are reinforced by making a chart with "model magic" caterpillars and chrysalises. Math concepts that are reinforced are symmetry, fractions, how to draw solid shapes (form and volume); geometrical concepts are taught through origami.
In art class, I am striving to teach your children the creative thinking and problem-solving skills that will be tools that they will use to learn what they will need to know in their future jobs and lives. What they will encounter we adults can only imagine.
Vertical Articulation: Consistent Vocabulary - K-2 Level
Elements of Art
·
Color:
primary, secondary, warm/cool, color wheel, contrast, light and dark,
shading, spectrum/rainbow
·
Line:
straight, zigzag, curvy,
overlapping
·
Texture:
bumpy, smooth, rough
·
Shape: circle, oval, square, re
·
Form:
solid shapes—pyramid, cube,
cylinder, sphere, rectangular prism, 3-dimensional vs. 2-dimensional
Principles of Art
·
Symmetry (all grades):
symmetrical,
line of symmetry, match, mirror-image
·
Composition (all grades)
Categories of Art
·
By grade 3, students
will be able to identify, :
still life, portrait, landscape, seascape, everyday life, modern art,
abstract, 3-dimensional, sculpture
·
Figure drawing (all grades)
·
Landscape (3rd grade): 4 parts of a
landscape: horizon line, foreground, middle ground, background
·
Perspective (3rd grade): bird’s eye
view/blue print, cross-section
·
Examples
of cultures that I teach about from year to year:
Early
America
(colonial),
· Monet, Picasso, O’Keefe, Nevelson, Kandinsky, Eric Carle, etc.