Before starting our activity I write these terms on the board and I start drawing examples of them underneath them. As I do this, students share out and give me more examples. I also talk about what a still life is in art.
After this, I share an illustration by British artist Marcus Oakley.
I ask students to quietly look at it and think about what they see. I model this out loud- "I see one color, two colors, 3 colors I know. I see a geometric shape. I see another. I see a color pattern. I see a natural shape I know..."
After the minute is up, students share and I write these on the board. I tell them that we will use these words to help us write a class sentence together at the end of the lesson. I also point out that for such a "simple" picture, we were able to see so many different things.
I ask the classes if they know the name for the 3 main colors in the picture. At least one student remembers the correct answer from kindergarten- primary colors. I add that to our word list as well.
We then draw out a still life together. Pencil first, marker tracing second, and color stick filling in third. As we draw, I repeat the vocabulary we are learning. We make our flower pots into cylinders by using ovals, straight lines, and curved lines at the bottom. I show them a picture of a jade plant and we use that as our plant in the back of the drawing. I talk about how cacti and these plants are common to our area in San Diego and how they are desert plants. There are always kids who have them at or near their homes.
When we trace the lines, I ask them to use one of the primaries to go over the natural shapes and another to go over the geometric shapes.
They can color their drawing with the 3 primary colors. I ask them to leave the natural shapes white, so those shapes can stand out. They may color shapes in solid or add color patterns to them.
At the end of the lesson, I ask the classes to help me put together a sentence that tells a reader about the project we made. I ask them use a couple vocabulary words from our word list. Once we have our sentence I read it and a student reads it to the class.
These are the sentences so far-
Monday 20 & 22- We drew a still life with cylinders and plants.
Tuesday 20 & 22- We drew a still life with primary colors and natural shapes.
Weds 724 & 19- We drew a picture with natural and geometric shapes.
Weds 12 & 14- We colored the cylinders with primary colors.