Crowd Project Lesson Plan (Elevator Art)

The lesson should be presented to students as drawing a crowd - with people in front and behind each other (layers). They should not know that the people are in an elevator until they are done drawing each character and then can guess where the characters are standing. It is a directed activity so students should draw each character that you describe and then keep going on to the next one as you describe it. They can go back and add detail later.

Kent School District Technology Objectives:

CAI and Productivity - Use a variety of technology tools and peripherals to remediate skill deficits, facilitate learning throughout the curriculum, and support personal, academic and professional productivity.

Publishing - Design, develop, publish, and present multimedia and online products using technology resources that demonstrate and communicate curriculum concepts to audiences inside and outside the classroom.

Art

Kent School District SLO's:

Visual Arts 2.0 (5th Grade) Kent School District students in Visual Arts will experience, develop, and produce visual works of art that communicate an idea. (6th Grade) …incorporate artistic structures including perspective, balance, and unity through a variety of techniques such as sketching, painting, and sculpture to develop a two- or three-dimensional artistic expression.

Washington State EALR's:

Art 1.2 organize arts elements into artistic compositions

• Previous Learning: Students should be familiar with the Kid Pix pencil, eraser, and bucket tools and their options.
• Modeling: Have five or six students come up to the front of the room. Have them stand bunched up together to show overlapping and how much you can see of each person (all of the ones in front, only some of the ones in back, etc.). Then, show in Kid Pix how they can "sketch" in each person and add detail later.
• Guided Practice: In this art dictation lesson, you will tell your students descriptions of characters and they will create each character based on the descriptions. Some character choices might include an astronaut wearing a helmet, an alien, a rock star holding a guitar or microphone, a scientist holding a test tube filled with a bubbling liquid, an artist holding a pain palette, their favorite animal, and a clown wearing a funny hat. Dictate each character one at a time, using the slide show (or a list of the characters on the board) for those students requiring additional time to work at their own pace. Every five minutes or so, tell them a new person that they need to draw. They should stop and "sketch in" that person. They should use the pencil tool (on the second thickness - the default when KidPix opens) and the first four erasers that only erase a portion of a picture. They should not use the erasers that erase the whole picture. The description of each character will also be posted on the projected screen with the slide show. You can download a ClarisWorks 4.0 version of the slide show.
• If you have any ESL students who don't speak English and don't know what to draw, find books in the library that have pictures of each character to show them what to draw.
• Save after they draw the first person so that if something happens later, they can revert back to at least a partially saved copy. Then, encourage them to SAVE frequently (after each person is a good time) so that if they make a major mistake, they won't have lost everything.
• Independent Practice: Using the sketched people they have drawn and the descriptions of each character on the screen, students can add detail and finish their drawing on their own.
• Closure: Have students guess where they think these people are standing. (Answer: in an elevator) Soon they will be writing a story about these characters and why they are all in an elevator together. Following this part of the exercise, ask them to begin thinking about some possibilities for the characters in their story. Save and Quit.

Writing

Kent School District SLO's:

Language Arts (5th Grade) 3.0 Kent School District students in language arts will write effectively in a variety of styles and structures. (6th Grade) 3.0 ...apply editing, proofreading skills, and knowledge of the writing process to written personal essays, creative stories, and/or informational reports.

Washington State EALR's:

1. The student writes clearly and effectively. To meet this standard, the student will: 1.1 develop concept and design develop a topic or theme; organize written thoughts with a clear beginning, middle, and end; use transitional sentences and phrases to connect related ideas; write coherently and effectively 1.2 use style appropriate to the audience and purpose use voice, word choice, and sentence fluency for intended style and audience 1.3 apply writing conventions know and apply correct spelling, grammar, sentence structure, punctuation, and capitalization

• Students can use the truck tool (with the magnet option) in Kid Pix to select their picture (cropping if necessary). Then, choose copy (under the Edit menu) and open a word processing program. In a word processing program such as ClarisWorks, students choose Paste under the Edit menu. Pasting it this way will add it as a piece of text that can then be centered just like text. If you prefer to paste it as a graphic object, turn the tools on, click on the arrow tool (next to the large "A") and then paste. This way, it can be moved around on the page. If you paste using this second option, students will hit Return many times to get past the picture and be able to begin typing their story.
• Then, they can begin writing a story about these characters and where they are going. This lesson lends itself to descriptive writing. You can have students write about all of the characters or just some. They can become one of the characters or tell the story as an outsider. Another writing resource is the Six Trait Writing web page.
• They can then edit, check spelling, and change the font, font size and color, etc. Student should also check their spacing, commas, and capitals and periods. Then, they can peer edit each others' stories on the computer before printing.

Assessment

• Crowd Project Grading Sheet - This sheet mainly assesses technology skills. The writing skills and art might be graded separately. Students can also self-evaluate themselves with this grading sheet before printing.