This unit is about the artist Frida Kahlo, how her Mexican culture had an impact on her artwork and how she remained true to her identity. The students will also learn the differences between self portraits and regular portraits, as well as the anatomy of portraits. The students will then create a self-portrait with the help of a template, choosing details making it unique to them. They will then choose at least one animal and element of nature to add in, as Kahlo did in her work.

This unit is about Folk Art from around the world, with a focus on Hispanic countries, as we began during Hispanic heritage month. We discussed the purpose of Folk Art, the various uses for it and how it differs from the type of fine art you see in a museum, but why it is still important to art. The students have been working on a drawing project, where they are creating their own version of a Mexican Folk Art sugar skull.

This unit will focus on the Elements line and pattern in Art. We will talk about how these elements are the building blocks of art and how they are important to other ideas like form, space and motion. Students will then discuss the different types of lines there are, followed by what are patterns and where they see them. The project for this unit will involve students coming up with as many different patterns and lines as they can to fill up a sectioned off pumpkin. They will outline and color it at the end. 

Most of the time in art, we speak about artists who are long gone and no longer making art. In this unit we will discuss a contemporary artist from Brazil, named Romero Britto. We will talk about his use of certain elements of art and how those choices create a certain mood in his work. We will connect his work to Pop Art in its characteristics. Then, the students will choose a character, from a show, game, book or elsewhere; and they will then create a composition where the background is sectioned off and filled with line, shape pattern and color, as Britto's work is.

This unit builds on a previous unit the grade studied about pattern and line, but also adds in the fun of animals in clothing! The students will be putting an animal into a winter sweater they design with varius patterns and then adding their own winter accessories as well. 

We will be going through the 100+ year history of comics and learning how comics became an art in their own art through their growing popularity. We will discuss the qualities unique to comics and the art of the comic book cover. Then, students will plan out and design their own comic book cover about anything they choose. 

In this unit we will discuss the element of texture in art and learn what implied texture is. We will talk about the ways an artist creates texture through mark-making and color use. Then, we will watch a read-aloud of the book Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak and students will create their own monsters inspired by his illustrations. Students will incorporate different textures and monster features of their choice to create their own unique monster with a name. During Read Across America Month/Week, a display of our monsters will be up for the school to see on the first floor. (Pictures will be posted in March) 

In this unit we will have a class discussion about Street Art and VS Graffiti. We will discuss what makes one legal and one not. We will also go into more detail about why one is considered a fine art and why one can get you arrested, as well as the two classically trained artists who make it VS self taught taggers. We will then learn what a 'tag' is and the students will create their own tags in their own choice of lettering and then add layers to their tag to add dimension and a background.

In this unit we will learn about the art movement of Surrealism. We will discuss what makes this movement in art so different from others and why this movement became what it was due to what was happening in the world at that time. We will then learn about the artist Salvador Dali and one of his most famous paintings The Persistence of Memory and its meaning. Students will then choose an object and draw it in a form of it melting onto or off of a surface. Students will have free choice in how they depict the item and how it interacts with other items/a background.

The 3rd grade has already discussed Native Americans in their Social Studies class, so we will build upon what they already know and diver deeper into native art, specifically Totem Poles. We will learn the process of creating totem poles, as well as their various purposes. We will discuss the importance symbolism played in this culture, especially when it came to animals and what they meant in their art. Students will be choosing an animal based on their symbolic meaning in Native culture and then creating a single totem that is collaged using various layers of paper and materials to represent their animal, along with decoration and detail that these peoples often adorned their totems with.