Fourth Grade Kits

	Action Figure Collage: Students look at and learn about the collages of contemporary artist Miriam Schapiro. Students use a mannequin to draw and create a colorful paper collage “action figure,” showing themselves doing something they enjoy. They give credit to the person who taught them this skill.	Download this lesson plan
	African Painted Walls: Students ‘travel’ to the region of Burkina Faso in Western Africa to learn about the well-known painted houses. After studying the artists and their work, students create a narrative wall painting using cut silhouettes and paint. They incorporate patterns and traditional or personal symbols into their work.	Download this lesson plan
	Alaskan Landscapes with Georgia O'Keeffe: Students study the life and art of Georgia O’Keeffe, focusing on her landscape painting. They create cut paper and oil pastel landscapes working from photos of Alaska.	Download this lesson plan
	Aleut Basket Painting: Students learn about Aleut basket weaving techniques. They learn to weave a basic pattern and use tempera paint to create a repeated motif on their weaving.	Download this lesson plan
	Alutiiq Masks: Students learn the amazing story of the rediscovered masks from Kodiak Island, Alaska. They create a paper mask that explores 3 dimensions, simulates being made of wood, and includes traditional features. They present their mask as a museum exhibit.	Download this lesson plan
	Asian Bamboo Painting: Students discuss the meaning of tradition as applied to Chinese/Japanese painting and calligraphy. They practice brushstrokes using traditional tools, create paintings of bamboo, mount them scroll-style with patterned borders and finish them by stamping with a red signature chop.	Download this lesson plan
	Bird Drawing with Bill Berry: Students learn about wildlife Alaskan artist Bill Berry. He is best known for his animal studies, published field sketchbook and children’s books. Students examine an Alaskan bird photograph with care and practice different drawing exercises. Lastly they produce a complete bird drawing.	Download this lesson plan
	Butterfly Paper Sculptures: Artists and designers often look to nature for inspiration. French artist and naturalist E.A. Seguy drew intricate scientific illustrations of butterflies and created designs based on his drawings. Students learn about Seguy and produce a 3 dimensional paper sculpture butterfly with colored paper and oil pastel patterns.	Download this lesson plan
	Cans with Andy Warhol: Students will be introduced to the artist Andy Warhol, famous for his Pop Art paintings of Campbell's Soup cans. Students will also learn that Warhol had a career as a graphic artist. Students will create their own labeled can to hold whatever humorous or imaginative things they want to contain or preserve.	Download this lesson plan
	Caribou on the Tundra: Students learn about the habits and habitat of caribou and their relationship to Athabascan people. They draw lichen growing on the tundra using layers of land to show perspective. Tissue paper and watercolor paint embellish the caribou on the tundra collage.	Download this lesson plan
	Centennial Bridge: Students learn about the Alaskan Native artist Ron Senungetuk. He designed a landmark bridge in Fairbanks. Students design and create a 2-D abstract bridge from construction paper. Each student bridge contains exactly 100 pieces of paper, through a cutting exercise directed by the lesson.	Download this lesson plan
	Drawing from Observation: Aquatic Insects: Students slow down and follow the details and fine lines of their subject. Drawing as careful observers, they learn about their subject as they go. They learn cross-hatching techniques for adding value and use these as they finish their drawing with a fine point black pen.	Download this lesson plan
	Giant Steps: Art and Jazz: Students are inspired by a brief lesson in jazz history. They are introduced to the music of John Coltraine. Students recognize similarities in jazz music and art. They create mixed media art, combining painted watercolor shapes with scratch-foam block printing.	Download this lesson plan
	Hokusai Insect Prints: Students learn about the Japanese printmaker Katsushika Hokusai, best known for his print “The Great Wave Off Kanagawa”. They will create Japanese children’s style prints from collage (called a “collograph”), using insects as imagery.	Download this lesson plan
	Invent and Draw a Robot: Students are inspired by the book, Leonardo and the Flying Boy. They become familiar with the inventions of Leonardo Da Vinci. Students invent and draw a robot incorporating geometric solids. They name and write about their robot.	Download this lesson plan
	Jellybean Books: Students write a color poem using their five senses. They will create a small “jellybean” book and decorate it using a simple painting technique, sequins, beads, etc.... Students then embellish their original poems further. These go great in a jar, to be shared like “jelly beans” now and again when you want a “treat!”	Download this lesson plan
	Landscapes of the Iditarod: After viewing Iditarod photos and landscapes by Alaskan painters, students paint the background, middle ground, and foreground of an Alaskan landscape, demonstrating a change in value to help build a sense of depth, perspective.	Download this lesson plan
	Ocean Life Diorama: Students create a coral reef marine habitat complete with all the components that live in the habitat using oil pastels and construction paper.	Download this lesson plan
	Olanna's Paper Sculptures: Students learn about the Alaskan Native artist Melvin Olanna. His stylized sculptures reflect his Inupiaq culture. Students create simple animal shapes from paper, using a paper scoring technique to make them 3D. Paper sculptures are mounted on a background based on an Alaskan landscape.	Download this lesson plan
	Patterned Pottery Birds: Students are inspired by the 4,000 year old Vucedol Dove. They learn about the archaeological site in Croatia where the clay bird was discovered. Students make a pottery bird using templates, and incorporating basic clay techniques for construction. After applying underglaze to the bird, students create an original pattern, and scratch the design into the surface of their bird.	Download this lesson plan
	Paper Quilts: Students work in small cooperative groups to agree on a set of artistic “rules” regarding a species of butterfly. Each child then makes a cut paper collage that follows those rules, and the group presents their unique, but similar artworks in a group “paper quilt.”	Download this lesson plan
	Rachel Carson's Silent Spring: Students learn about the life of writer, biologist and conservationist, Rachel Carson. Students learn to use complementary colors to show the effects of pollution on their plant. They create a before and after line drawing of an Alaskan plant using watercolor paints for color, and mixing complementary colors for gray and brown.	Download this lesson plan
	Raven Sculptures with John Hoover: Students learn about Alaskan Aleut sculptor John Hoover and study two of his raven sculptures, looking for shape and texture. After learning interesting scientific facts about ravens, they draw and cut raven sculpture mobiles.	Download this lesson plan
	Salmon Summer in Kodiak: Through the book Salmon Summer in Kodiak, students learn about an Aleut boy who lives on Kodiak Island and fishes for salmon. Students create a 2D painting with warm or cool colors and incorporate designs inspired by salmon and traditional Aleut hunting hats.	Download this lesson plan
	Shells with Georgia O'Keeffe: Students learn about the life and art of Georgia O’Keefe, focusing on her large, close-up paintings of shells. They play an observation game of hunting for shape, pattern, and texture on photos of real shells, and then they use oil pastels to create a four-section study of actual shells.	Download this lesson plan
	Sitka Spruce and Hemlock: Students become familiar with the shapes and textures in Western Hemlock and Sitka Spruce. They practice different pencil strokes and values, then draw a landscape featuring these specific local trees.	Download this lesson plan
	Snowflake Prints: Students explore connections between math, science and art through studying the beauty and structure of snowflakes. They examine the snowflake photographs of scientists Wilson Bentley and Kenneth Libbrecht, creating original snowflake prints and cut-paper snowflake designs which demonstrate radial symmetry.	Download this lesson plan
	Spaces in Between: Students will see the amazing artwork of the cut paper artist, Beatrice Coron, and through her work, learn about the art concept of “negative space.” Students will each create a cut paper silhouette of a figure and add their “window” to a class city mural.	Download this lesson plan
	Spirit Masks: Students examine and discuss contemporary and traditional Yupik masks. Several elements are recognized and incorporated in a mask related to the student’s life and interests.	Download this lesson plan
	Stomp to the Music: Students learn about rhythm, movement, and texture in the context of sound and image. They create their own watercolor resist using color, line, and texture to demonstrate principles of both art and music.	Download this lesson plan
	Transformations: Students are inspired by the Caldecott award winning book, First the Egg, by Brenda Vaccaro Seeger. Students explore the concept of “transformations.” Using oil pastels, scissors, and incorporating complementary colors, students create their own transformation two-page book.	Download this lesson plan
	Tolerance Banners: After viewing and discussing the images of the United Nations Six Flags of Tolerance, students create a positive-negative design based on a Japanese paper cutting technique called Notan.	Download this lesson plan
	36 Views of Mendenhall Glacier: Students are inspired Hokusai’s 36 Views of Mt. Fuji. They create their own view of the Mendenhall Glacier using Mark Kelley’s photos. Watercolor pencil painting techniques are used as students learn about contour lines, shading, background, middle ground, foreground, and the importance of contrast, to create their view of the glacier.	Download this lesson plan
	Water Dance: Students are inspired by the book, Water Dance. They become familiar with the artwork by Spencer Reynolds, and create moving water pictures in his style, incorporating bold colors, and repeating lines and shapes. Students use watercolor crayons to create their “Water Dance.”	Download this lesson plan