Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Giraffe Eating - Class Project #1

Here is the first project that I will do with my students for this school year. I can hardly believe that I spent all day trying to work out this simple design. However, the hardest part about putting together art lessons is making them challenging, yet achievable. I think this design will have a lot to offer kindergarten though 8th grade (those are the grade levels that I teach).
This first lesson is a contour line drawing lesson, with minimal shading. Since my approach is progressive, the next lesson will focus more on shading, with the other lessons adding other techniques and approaches.
After experiencing a little bit of burnout by the end of last year, I am finally getting excited about teaching again. It was a nice summer break but now I am ready to take on another year's challenge.

3 comments:

Alex said...

What a fun project! 7 more to go? Hmmm are they all going to be based on animals and flowers too? Or are they going to be some landscapes and houses, or even geometry designs?
:) I am so curious because I remember always looking forward to my teacher's next project when I was in school.

David R. Vallejo said...

I am a traveling artist, of sorts, visiting different schools for 8 weeks at a time. So I need to have at least 8 lessons ready to present. This year I was planning to mainly focus on animals, though I may deviate for different holidays or special occasions. My classes start with basic drawing concepts and then gradually go to color, paint, pastels, and mixed media. It is a lot of fun and sometimes I think I get more out of the lessons than the kids.

Speck said...

Oh David, where were you when I was in kindergarten??? Your class would have been the highlight of the year.

Creating lesson plans sounds like great fun to me, but then I'm not a teacher and don't have to do it for a living.