Peace Pets Sculptures Art Class Lesson Idea (Middle School)

 Hello! I'm very excited to share a lesson I felt was very satisfactory that was part of my unit on peace last semester. The unit was inspired by Romanesque art and historical psalters. The elements we focused on were texture and form, I think, for this lesson. I did this lesson with my middle school students grades 5th-7th, but this could easily be adapted for any grade level. The challenge was for students to sculpt an animal of choice out of Polymer clay, paint them with tempera paints (and optionally add Sharpie designs), then to make an accompanying card to encourage somebody or give somebody peace by sharing uplifting words of life. Some students did encouraging messages, others used Bible verses. One student made a creative acronym. I did mine alliterate because of course I am obsessed with alliteration, but I did not expect anyone else to. I was so very thrilled when a lot of students came up with amazing alliterate names, like the "Turtle of Truth", "Worm of Wisdom", "Elephant of Encouragement", "Owl of Optimism", etc. I was so proud of their works and creative ideas. Here are some examples of student works below: 

Hopefully I can find the rest of the photos to share eventually. I think my 5th-7th grade students quite enjoyed this lesson, so I hope fellow art teachers out there find this inspiring! 

-Lauryn 

Folk Art Tunnel Books (Middle School Art Lesson)

Good Sunday morning, everyone! I am happy to announce that since I have started adding art lessons and plan to continue posting some when I have time for blogging, I plan to create a separate page like the "Events" and "Gifts" pages where those can be easily accessed for my fellow art teachers (or people looking for an art lesson, creative parents, teachers of other subjects, or anyone interested, really). Speaking of art lessons, the one I'd like to share today was part of a folk art unit themed around memories/time, this one inspired by Grandma Moses. 

The assignment was to create a tunnel book featuring a memory (or mashing memories together) that was (or were) important to the student. I got this wonderful tunnel book project idea from this link from Dali's Moustache: http://dalimoustache.blogspot.com/2014/02/tunnel-book-fun-with-8th-grade.html. I'd seen but never knew the name of tunnel books, and certainly never made one prior to this, so I used Youtube tutorials and they are surprisingly simple, even for very non-mathematical people like me lacking in measuring and cutting skills. I broke it down step-by-step for my middle school students (I did it with grades 5th-7th). This project applies the art elements of line, shape, and form. I handwrite my lesson plans and I am not required to state all of the standards met at my school (praise the Lord) although they do align with national and GA state art education standards. In case you were interested in seeing the actual lesson document, I tried to add it to this post but I could not attach or paste it (sorry!). 

I hope you enjoyed this post and have a great 4th of July!

-Lauryn