Saturday, October 24, 2009

What do Third graders need to know about art?

Third grade students will be able to identify and use visual arts vocabulary and concepts, and apply basic skills and techniques.

How you can help your child with Visual Arts:

Display artwork around the home and workplace.
Keep a variety of art materials available.
Encourage safe use of material and clean-up practices.
Do art projects with your child.
Talk about the art objects in your home.
Sign, date and save some artwork in a folder.
Visit online galleries, museums and cultural events.

Your child needs to understand and apply Visual Arts concepts, vocabulary and skills in order to:

Identify geometric forms (e.g. sphere, cone, cube), both written and digital.
Identify and mix intermediate colors.
Identify and use positive/negative space.
Identify and use a variety of artwork.
Understand and demonstrate light and dark values.
Demonstrate proper care of tools and materials.
Use line to create details.

Your child needs to demonstrate the thinking skills used in the artistic processes by:

Applying a creative, performing and responding/reflecting process to Visual Art.

Your child needs to understand how to communicate through visual art by:

Blending art media for different visual purposes.
Your child needs to make connections within and across the Arts, to other disciplines, life, cultures, and work by:

Describing the features of a specific artists or culture’s art.
Describing career roles in Visual Art and demonstrating the skills used in the world of work.
Resources to use at home:
Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction at http://www.k12.wa.us/curriculumInstruct/arts/
Wenatchee School District web site at http://home.wsd.wednet.edu/

Sunday, October 18, 2009

In third grade we created name tags and studied the anatomy of salmon. We created a scientific drawing of salmon using the E-Z Draw method where we drew big shapes and lines called Macro, then moved into Medium sized shapes and lines called Medium, and finally drew small detailed lines and shapes called Micro. The elements of art that we explored are bellow.

line—an element of art: the flat path of a dot through space used by artists to control the viewer’s eye movement; a thin mark made by a pencil, pen, or brush

line quality—the width or appearance of any line, such as thick or thin, smooth or rough, continuous or broken

line types—the variety of directions and shapes that a line may have; vertical, horizontal, diagonal, curved, zigzag

line types—there are five (5) types of lines: vertical, horizontal, diagonal, curved, zigzag

shape—an element of visual arts; a closed space made when a line connects to itself

geometric shapes—a defined form; circle, square, triangle

geometric—any shapes that are based on math principles, such as a square, circle, and triangle hatching, cross hatching, scribbling, broken lines, repeating lines and shapes

texture—an element of visual arts; how something feels or appears to feel; stippling, hatching, cross hatching, scribbling, broken lines, repeating lines and shapes

drawing-techniques—different ways of drawing, such as hatching, stippling, contour, blending, or shading

hatching—drawing thin parallel or crossed lines

contour—drawing the outline of a shape

blending—

shading—drawing different grades of a color

sketch—a drawing without much detail, usually completed in a short amount of time; sometimes used as a rough draft for later work

value/shading—an element of visual arts; the lightness and darkness of a line, shape, or form