Intermediate (5th and 6th Grade) Art Part Two: A Live Semester Course

This live 15-week semester flex course will provide seven different art units targeted for 5th and 6th grade students who have already taken the part one version either live or flex of this course.  Each unit will cover a different artist, art movement, and/ or art culture and will teach students how to manipulate various art media, both 2D and 3D, better preparing students for upper middle school art.  Those media include drawing, painting, mixed media, clay/ and ceramics.

Once the course begins, parents will be given a new unit every few weeks, depending upon the project, which will include the learning goals and final project.   Students will start each unit by learning about its art history portion at the beginning of each unit through a presentation.  These art history concepts will also be reviewed with various learning activities like Kahoot. 

After the learning about the art history potion, students will create a series of sketches to brainstorm and refine their ideas and to become more familiar with the media of the project.  Once the sketches have been completed, students will make a final project based upon the art history and media. 

I will show students on camera how to finish the sketches and project with demonstrated step-by-step instructions and sketch and final examples.  A step-by-step guide will also be provided as a PDF, so students can print out the steps and/ or view them electronically as well.  Students will show their sketches and projects during each step on camera to be given any needed help and/ or feedback.

After completing each project, students will be bring their finished project to class, hold it up to the camera, and participate in a class critique by stating one thing they like about each other’s art works, their favorite part of the project, and the most challenging part of the project.  

Below is a breakdown of the course:

Unit one (1 week), dragon guide book- a drawing series, featuring both western and easter dragon designs based on the folklore from the cultures of Europe during the Middle Ages and of Southeastern Asia

Unit two (3 weeks), panel painting- a 3-part painting series on canvas or mixed media paper that tells a story and is based on the panel European paintings and the Ink illustrations of China and Japan during the Middle Ages

Unit three (2 weeks), yarn pouches- a small yarn pouch made from a handheld cardboard loom based upon the weavings from various cultures including Ghanaian Kente cloth, Native American Navajo blankets, and American colonial floor loom weavings.

Unit four (3 weeks), gridded self-portrait- a mixed media 2D design in which the face is gridded and each grid features a different media and/ or style based upon the various illustration styles of contemporary cartoonists and book illustrators

Unit five (1 week), clay relief- a relief sculpture design made out of air-dry clay based upon the relief sculptures of the Ancient Near East

Unit six (3 weeks), cartoon comic strip- a drawing turned digital to create a single page of a comic book/ graphic novel after learning about the history of superheroes in comics

Unit seven (2 weeks), name sculpture- a 3D design of one's name in which each letter is a different style and is stacked together to form a sculpture based on modern and post-modern sculptures