Word Paintings Inspired by Jasper Johns

I know a lot of art teachers do projects inspired by Jasper Johns’s alphabet painting (below); here is my take on it. I cover two concepts with this fourth grade lesson: (1) tints and shades, and (2) complementary colors.

Patchwork Elephants

Elmer by David McKee tells the story of a patchwork elephant who disguises himself in gray to look like the rest of his herd, only to learn that the other elephants like him best when he’s his unique self. I learned about this book and collage project from Mrs. Brown.

Day of the Dead Skulls (Soft Pastels)

The Day of the Dead, a Mexican holiday celebrated on November 1 and 2, was fascinating to my third graders. The special areas team at my school has been working hard to support homeroom teachers’ reading goals, so I distributed a card to each student with a fact and accompanying photo about the holiday and gave them a couple minutes of silent reading time to learn their facts. Then they had to share their facts within small groups. As a class, we made a T-chart on my ActivBoard showing what students already knew about the Day of the Dead before they got to class on the left and what they learned from the cards on the right. (I’m fortunate to have 50-minute class periods, which allows me to sometimes do activities like this in addition to the steps of the art project.)

Day of the Dead Skulls (Clay)

As fifth graders walked into my classroom and saw photos of Day of the Dead candy skulls on my ActivBoard, they were so excited to find out what we were going to do that day. Then, when I told them we would be using clay…well, “excited” doesn’t begin to describe their reaction!