Lesson Library

Enduring Understanding: Personal identity can be communicated through deliberate artistic choices.

Students in grades K-5 start the year building community by sharing who they are through their art. Students design and complete a portfolio cover communicating personal identity through name design, symbolic imagery, color technique, and background painting.

This is a 4 week unit, with classes seen once a week for 70 minutes.

• In Week 1, each grade level reviews the class routines and expectations and puts their name on their portfolio using a technique unique to their grade level. 

• In Week 2, each grade level is given a guiding question to think about. Students draw symbols around their name in response.

• In Week 3, each grade level learns a coloring technique and uses it to color their letters and symbols.

• In Week 4, students analyze the art of an artist, review painting procedures, and paint their background on their portfolio.

The unit arc for each grade is as follows:

Kinder: alphabet stamp letters → what makes you happy → hard vs soft crayon pressure → Resurrection, Alma Thomas

1st Grade: tracing poster letters → what are your favorite things → layering crayons → Air View of Spring Nursery, Alma Thomas

2nd Grade: bubble letters → what things are important to you → blending crayons → Yellow Edge, Sam Gilliam

3rd Grade: character letters → what symbols represent you → layering crayons with color pencils → Milkwood Arcade, Helen Frankenthaler

4th Grade: cursive letters → what does your inner world look like → shading with color pencil → Shedding Tears to the Season, Yayoi Kusama

5th Grade: graffiti-style letters → what are your hopes and dreams → burnishing and marker detail → Still Life (1966), Yayoi Kusama