Scary Shadows

elementary: 28 grade 2 students between 6 and 8 years old | Willingdon elementary (Montreal) | September to December 2009

LESSON PLAN

Duration: 40 minutes

Title: Whose Shadow?

Rationale: shape is an element of art, and can be found in many aspects of it, as well as of the everyday world; notably as the shadow. This lesson will serve to create links between the students’ line drawings, by viewing these same drawings as shapes. This will give the students the opportunity to explore a different point of view on how to construct a drawing.

Integration: this lesson is integrated with math because it deals with organic and geometric shapes

Broad Areas of Learning: environmental awareness and consumer rights and responsibilities. Focus of Development: Awareness of the environment.

Cross-Curricular Competencies: constructs his/her identity (by being open to surroundings)

Visual Arts Competencies: Creates personal images (by creating a character and its shadow), and appreciates works of art and cultural objects from the world’s artistic heritage, personal images, and media images (by sharing appreciation of the experience during the response period)

Learning Objectives:

Students will demonstrate an understanding of the difference between organic and geometric and apply them by creating a character using organic shapes and its shadow using geometric shapes

Art Form: drawing

Technique: tracing

Materials, Tools, Equipment:

• White paper
• Pencil
• Scissors
• Glue
• Black paper
• Overhead projector
• Magnetic clip, magnet, or tape
• (optional) big colored paper

Vocabulary: shadow, shape, organic, geometric

Artistic and/or Cultural References: none required, however making a model would help the students understand the concept even better

LESSON PHASES

Preparation: Set up the overhead projector station: make sure the projection is low enough for the students to reach and close enough to the wall for the light to fit inside the black papers.

Motivation: Time allotted: 10 minutes

Procedure: If possible, link current lesson with previous one. Introduce the concept of objects and figures as shapes. Make a cell phone from two rectangles and a cat from circles. Let the students define the difference between the geometric shapes of the cell phone and the organic shapes of the cat. Point out that cell phones can be made of round shapes and that a cat can be made of squares and rectangles too. Explain what a geometric shape and an organic shape are (let the students try to figure it out). Introduce the concept of a shadow. You can show them clips of the beginning of Disney’s Peter Pan (when Peter is looking for a way to reattach his shadow) or bring in a bright light and show them what a shadow is. Explain that the students will be creating characters and making the characters’ shadows too. The character must be formed from organic shapes whereas the shadow will be made of geometric shapes to show the difference between the two.

Development: Time allotted: 25 minutes

            Procedure: The students will draw a character from organic shapes on the white paper, then cut it out. Next, one student at a time, they will place their character on the overhead projector, creating a shadow on the wall (or the blackboard). That is where the black paper will be taped or held by a magnet, allowing the students to trace their characters’ shadow onto the black piece of paper using only geometric shapes this time. The students will go back to their seat, cut out their shadow, place it behind the character at an angle, and glue both the character and its shadow together. If desired, their works can be glued onto a bigger, more colourful piece of paper, a background can be added, etc.

Response: Time allotted: 5 minutes

         Procedure: The response should serve to review all that has been learned. Ask about their characters (they are more than likely to have a story accompanying them), ask them to identify the organic shapes in their character and their geometric shapes in the shadows. Ask if they had fun, what was their favourite part, what they didn’t like so much? Ask why.

Clean-up: Time allotted: 5 minutes

         Procedure: Place all scraps of paper in recycle bin (or keep them if in good condition) and hang up the art works.

Evaluation Rubric

Title:

Name of student:

Objectives:	Check whichever applies
The student has proven an understanding of the concept of organic shapes by creating a character using organic shapes	“        Yes (2 points)
The student has proven an understanding of the concept of organic shapes by tracing a shadow using geometric shapes	“        yes (2 points)
The student has correctly positioned the shadow behind (rather than beside or in front of) the character	“        yes (0.5 points)
The shadow is in contact with the character, not detached.	“        Yes (0.5 points)

Total:          /   5

Comments: ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________