Aimée Archambault

Grade K- Snow castles

LEARNING GOAL: Combine small shapes to make bigger shapes. PROMPT: Use smaller shapes to build your snow castle. Include lots of special features. ASSESSMENT: Give you friend a "tour" of your snow castle. Explain how you used shapes to create the special features.

Grade K- Things that Go

LEARNING GOAL: Shapes make up objects in drawings. PROMPT: Draw a vehicle by combining shapes during our visit to the fire station. ASSESSMENT: Pair and Share- Look at your partner's drawing and name shapes that you see.

Grade 1- Favorite Feast

"My favorite feast is my birthday." LEARNING GOAL: Overlapping shapes create the illusion of depth. Visual clues help tell a story. PROMPT: Draw a picture of your family or friends celebrating your favorite feast with you. ASSESSMENT: Name things that are in the background and foreground of your drawing.

Grade 1- Mixed Media Stiff Life

LEARNING GOAL: Using shapes to make up a whole image. Using a table line to organize interior space. (connection to artists Van Gogh and Matisse) PROMPT: Zoom in on one object on the table and use smaller shapes to make the bigger shapes. ASSESSMENT: Pair and Share- explain to your partner where you started your drawing and what shapes you used.

Grade 2/3- Animal Pinch Pot

LEARNING GOAL: Score and slip keeps clay together. Details help give visual clues. PROMPT: Create a pinch pot and transform it into an animal by adding identifying clues. ASSESSMENT: Class Discussion: List advice you would give to the next class coming in to do this assignment.

Grade 3- Sound Painting

LEARNING GOAL: Lines and color can be expressive. Defining warm and cool colors. Abstract vs. realistic. PROMPT: Carefully select lines and colors to express the music in your final painting. ASSESSMENT: Mix up your practice drawings and see if you can match them with the 4 different songs based on the lines and colors you used.

Grade 3- Wack World Landscape

Title: "Infinite Space World" Packing List: A rubber suit so I won't get hurt by lighting. LEARNING GOAL: Using your imagination and a theme to inspire your artwork. This is a pre-assessment for organizing space and using details to provide visual information. (Connection to artists Dr. Seuss and Judy Pfaff) PROMPT: Create an imaginary world that has a theme. ASSESSMENT: Create a packing list for a visit to your Wacky World. Make sure that you pack for the unique traits of this world.

Grade 3- Wacky World

"Tooth Town" This is a more complex organization of space because the mouth covers part of the buildings and there are two horizon lines.

Grade 3- Object + realistic context

LEARNING GOAL: Using outlines and interior lines to make a realistic drawing. Drawing from life vs. from your imagination. Playing with scale. PROMPT: Drawing 1: Draw an object using outlines and interior lines to show details. Drawing 2: On the photocopy of your drawing, create a realistic setting for your object. Drawing 3: On the other photocopy, create an imaginary or surprising setting for your object. Play with scale. ASSESSMENT: Discussion: What makes it look realistic?

Grade 4-Hottest or Coldest Painting

LEARNING GOAL: Colors have temperatures. PROMPT: Make the hottest or coldest painting that you can. ASSESSMENT: Place your painting on the drying table along the thermometer descriptions (scalding, warm, chilly, freezing).

Grade 4- Zoom in

LEARNING GOAL: View point and composition can make us notice new things. Organic vs. geometric forms. Introduce analogous and complementary colors. (Connection to artists Georgia O'Keefe and Claus Oldenburg) PROMPT: Zoom in on a natural object and make the ordinary object look extraordinary (pastels and glue) ASSESSMENT: Pair and share: show your practice drawings and explain why you chose your final composition.

Grade 4- Poetic Collage

My Violin I love the sound of my violin. The songs are so beautiful. When I play it I feel like I’m flying away. My violin is a songbird. I love the sound of my violin. - 4th grader LEARNING GOAL: Using text and image to communicate together. (Connection to artist Romare Bearden) PROMPT: Use collage to add to the idea of your poem. ASSESSMENT: Explain to your group which parts of your poem inspired details in your collage.

Grade 4- Salt Marsh Field Trip

LEARNING GOAL: Appreciate the visual aspect and beauty of the salt marsh being studied in science class. (Connection to artist: Arthur Wesley Dow) PROMPT: Use a view finder to capture a beautiful view of the marsh. ASSESSMENT: Compare and contrast your drawings from the fall to Dow's paintings from other seasons.

Grade 4- Salt Marsh drawing

Grade 4- Text and image

LEARNING GOALS: Using text and image to tell a story. Using value. (Connection to traditional Chinese ink painting and contemporary Chinese Artists (Ai Weiwei) PROMPT: Use different values of ink to create a painting inspired by nature. Design a composition using poetry and paintings to tell a story. ASSESSMENT: Written reflections: How did you arrange your scroll to support your story?

Grade 4- Action Shot

LEARNING GOAL: Use scale and gesture to show action. Use exaggeration to communicate an idea or story. PROMPT: Use your gesture drawings to inspire a figure in action. Add a background to support the action shot. ASSESSMENT: Take turns acting out your scenes and decide if proportions are realistic or exaggerated. Discuss how it impacts the scene.

Grade 4- Bad Hair Day

LEARNING GOAL: Lines and facial expression can express emotions. Making mistakes into creative opportunities. PROMPT: Using only sharpie, draw yourself with a really bad hair day! ASSESSMENT: Practice making the expressions in the drawings and compare your friends expression to your drawing. Explain a mistake that you made and how you turned it into a creative opportunity.

Grade 5- Mini Me

LEARNING GOAL: Attaching clay securely, balancing a 3D form. Creating realistic proportions. Using visual clues to communicate. PROMPT: Create a mini you out of clay. Add visual clues to tell us about yourself. ASSESSMENT: Written artist statement. What does your "mini me" communicate about you?

Grade 5- 3D drawings- animals

LEARNING GOAL: Creating a 3D drawing that balances. Skills of bending and attaching wire securely. Using identifying characteristics of your animal. (Connections to artists: Calder and Deborah Butterfield) PROMPT: Create a 3D drawing of your animal with wire. ASSESSMENT: Create a zoo sign introducing your animal and explaining its identifying characteristics.

Grade 5- Mix and Match Painting

LEARNING GOAL: Mixing and matching color. Creating texture with paint. PROMPT: You have found a piece of a photo. Use paint to expand the photo to the edges of your paper. ASSESSMENT: Keep notes on the "color recipes" that match your photo the best. Midpoint: share a color recipe with someone who is mixing a similar color.

Grade 5- Expressive masks

LEARNING GOAL: Practicing subtractive vs. additive sculpting techniques. Using form and expression to communicate a chosen emotion. PROMPT: Make a contemporary version of the Greek theater masks (comedy and tragedy). ASSESSMENT: Sorting activity: Place your mask near an expressive word (angry, sad, worried, excited) and then explain why it belongs there to your small group.

Grade 5- Woven textiles

LEARNING GOAL: Techniques and vocabulary for weaving. Designers make the form match its function. (connection to artist: Shelia Hicks and product designers) PROMPT: Design a textile with a specific purpose (a pocket, pillow, bookmarking, coaster, mini blanket, etc.) and make the form match the function. ASSESSMENT: Written advice for some about to start the weaving project.

Grade 5- Natural sculpture

LEARNING GOAL: Making art in a public setting (the playground). Exploring natural art materials. PROMPT: Collaborate to create an abstract public sculpture with natural materials. Use contrasting color, shape, size, or texture to create a focal point. ASSESSMENT: Public Art Tour- Each group introduces their sculpture to the class and teacher, explaining how they created a focal point.

Grade 5- Close looking

LEARNING GOAL: Drawing an object from different view points. Outline and inside lines help show detail and form. (Connection to shoe design website) PROMPT: Draw a shoe or boot from at least three view points. Include only details that you can see. ASSESSMENT: Sort the drawings as you might arrange them in a shoe store (or on a website). Explain what categories you chose and how they connect to the details in the drawings.

Grade 5- Personal Print

LEARNING GOAL: Symbols can represent ideas and aspects of one's identify. Art can say something about you. PROMPT: Design a symbol or combination of symbols the represent you (including your hobbies and personality traits). ASSESSMENT: Written artist statement about what and how the symbol communicates ideas about the artist.

Grade 5- Building Design

LEARNING GOAL: Architects must consider form and function when designing the buildings. PROMPT: Work as a class and a group to design an imaginary town or city. ASSESSMENT: Midpoint and final critique: Class tour of each building with the architects explaining how the design decisions support the use of the building. Students make observations, ask questions and make suggestions. Each group also creates a written description of each building and its function for display.

Grade 5- Building Design- zoo detail

Grade 5- Building- train detail

Grade 5- Dream Bedroom

LEARNING GOAL: Point of view, scale, and perspective can work together to create models. PROMPT: Envision and create the bedroom of your dreams. ASSESSMENT: Create a real estate posting about dream bedroom telling us about its cool and unique features.

Grade 5- Dream Bedroom statement

Example of Dream Bedroom real estate posting.

Grade 5- Visual Narratives

LEARNING GOAL: Images can tell a story. (Artist connection: Grant Wood) PROMPT: Imagine that you are watching a movie and this painting (American Gothic by Grant Wood) is a paused picture. Draw and write what happened right before or right after this picture. ASSESSMENT: Listen to and look at your partner's visual and written story. Identify details that are told in pictures, words, or through both.