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Lesson Plans


Re: The First Day of School

[ Thread ][ Subject ][ Author ][ Date ]
Rosa Juliusdottir (rojul)
Thu, 16 Jul 1998 10:23:51 -0500

Bluestruth wrote:
>Hi, Artnetters--
>Sorry to bring this up, but the first day of school is just around the corner.
>I always present the SAME drawing exercise on the first day of school, and I
>would like to present something different to my students. I instruct the
>kids draw a person, a house and a tree. Boring, huh? What do you art experts
>do for an AWESOME first day exercise to get the kids into art right away-good
>attitude, etc. I go over class rules, etc. too. What do you do? Thanks in
>advance.
> Artfully, Bluestruth
>P.S. For your info-I only have 35 minutes with the students-minority kidz,
>inner city Chicago, Ill. -- Small, small budget. I need a Quickie!!

I most of the time have my children begin the year with a selfportrait. The
material depending on what age they are. All of them get a mirror and we
talk about the shape of the face, where the eyes, nose etc. are located, I
ask them to look closely at things like the shape of the eyes, colour etc.
and all the details one never looks at. Before we start I also show them
selfportraits by other artist, the choice of those again depends on the
students age. The youngest ones usually use broad wax crayons, and then
maybe felt tip markers or paints. The older ones make their first drawing
with a pencil, then the next with black oil crayon, then felt tip(black),
then black pen and finally charcoal, and each one is done on a different
size paper. They always love this assignment. I then photocopy portraits of
the whole class and make a book for each student. At the end of the year we
often make another self portrait and it is fun to compaire them to the ones
from the beginning of the year.
Best regards from the far north, Rosa