Participants and setting
Seventeen 4-year-olds who attend half-day preschool at Hathaway Brown School in Shaker Heights, Ohio, USA. The children had recently been on a field trip to a local art museum.
Theme
“Colors, Dots, Objects, Shapes, and Drips: Making Impressions in Art”
Featured modern artists and artistic elements
Colors: Claude Monet
Dots: Paul Seurat
Objects: Jasper Johns
Shapes: Pablo Picasso
Drips: Jackson Pollock
Instructional aims
Supporting creative representation:
drawing and painting (symbolic representation through art)
Supporting classification:
exploring and describing similarities, differences, and attributes in artwork
using and describing materials in different ways in art activity
Supporting seriation:
comparing attributes in artists' work
Supporting literacy:
describing artwork
exploring writing and writing tools
reading in various ways (storybooks, signs, symbols and one's own writing)
dictating stories
Environment plan -- the art studio
Book browsing area (a sampling):
Little Blue & Little Yellow by Leo Lionni
Mouse Paint by Ellen Stoll Walsh
illustrated books of artists' work
posters of artists' work
postcards of artists' work
children's artwork
Writing table:
making a journal page about a favorite color
exploring letters and words on the color wheel
making rebus messages
The art workshop (atelier):
Pretend you are... (children mimic featured artistsí styles)
mixing, finding, testing colors (children do color experiments)
making art pieces
(children create through line drawing, wood sculpting, easel painting, mosaics, murals)
Bookmaking
The Artists' Book (whole-group descriptions about the featured artists)
My Many Colored Days (individual innovations on Dr. Seuss book)
Storybook reading
My Many Colored Days by Dr. Seuss
The Art Lesson by Tomie dePaola
Of Colors and Things by Tana Hoban
Pigasso and Mootisse by Nina Laden
The Science Book of Color by Neil Ardley
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