Mapping Blueprints
Students will read and learn about the history of Francis Scott Key’s Star-Spangled Banner and the importance of the song in American history. Students will then create a mosaic of the US flag
Weather 4Cast
Lesson adapted from Art Makes U Smart.
Objective
Students will learn that weather is the combination of sunlight, wind, snow, or rain, and temperature in a particular region at a particular time. Students will learn three different watercolor techniques, and use lines to represent real and abstract motion.
Standards
NGSS: K-ESS2-1.
Use and share observations of local weather conditions to describe patterns over time.
VA:Cr1.1.Ka
Engage in exploration and imaginative play with materials.
VA:Cr2.1.Ka
Through experimentation, build skills in various media and
approaches to art-making.
VA:Cr2.3.Ka
Create art that represents natural and constructed environments.
Engagement
- Ask students to think about what the weather is like today. Did they need to wear a jacket? Could they feel the sun warm them up when they walked into school? Have them share their response with a partner.
- Review with students what the weather is like depending on what season it is. Review the seasons. Explain that scientists keep records of weather, look for patterns, and predict what the weather will be like during different seasons. Ask students what kind of weather patterns they notice in summer compared to the winter.
- Have students close their eyes and visualize themselves standing outside in the summer, with the sun’s bright light shining down on them. Then, have them visualize standing in a snowstorm, with cold flakes landing on their face. Do the same visualization with wind and rain.
- Explain to students they will be creating artwork that represents snowy, rainy, windy and sunny weather. Today, they will prepare one paper panel for each kind of weather (sun, rain, snow, wind). The next session, they will finish their panels by adding some finishing touches.
Activity (2 Sessions)
Session One:
Step 01
Panel One: Moonlit Snowflake
Ask students to picture a snowflake lit up in the moonlight. Explain how moonlight and sunlight reflect off of snowflakes because they are made up of tiny frozen water crystals! Show students a small sample of the Random Disco Glitter Flakes and ask if it looks like it could be crystals reflecting light.
Step 02
Have students prepare the Moonlit Snowflake panel by painting a portion of the watercolor paper purple. Only use enough water to make the paint damp, not soaking wet. Stop painting and add salt to the painted area. Observe how the salt absorbs the paint color and creates an interesting texture in the night sky. Ask students what they think the painting will look like when the paint dries.
Step 03
Keep painting and adding salt to the whole page. If the paint dries quickly, add more paint with a little bit of water and salt.
Step 04
Allow this paper to dry.
Step 05
Panel Two: Sunny Day
Explain that the sun creates its own energy. Light bulbs need to be plugged in, but not the sun! The energy from the sun comes to earth in the form of light and heat. Ask students to consider the sun sending energy to Earth, and ask them how that affects the temperature. Is it usually warmer or colder on a sunny day?
Step 06
Use the mixed media art paper for the Sunny Day panel. Color the entire page with a gold tempera stick.
Step 07
Add some glitter glue confetti to the paper, and spread the with a cotton swab or paint brush. Try to cover the whole page with the glitter glue confetti.
Step 08
Allow this paper to dry.
Step 09
Panel Three: Wind in an Autumn Sunset
Ask students to share what they think of when they think of autumn. They might remember things like leaves changing color, cooler temperatures, jumping in piles of crunchy leaves, etc. Have them visualize wind blowing colorful leaves off of a tree during this time of year.
Step 10
Explain to students that wind is invisible, but we can feel it and sometimes smell it if it is carrying a scent with it, such as the smell of fresh cookies from a bakery, or the smoke from a campfire. Since wind is invisible, we have to imagine what it would look like if we could see it. Wind can create motion, like a leaf blowing across a field. We will try and re-create this motion in our artwork.
Step 11
Have students start by painting an autumn sunset on the watercolor paper with warm colors. First, paint the top 2⁄3 of the paper yellow. While the yellow is still wet, go over the bottom of the yellow part with a little bit of orange. While the orange is still wet, go over the bottom of the orange with a little bit of red. While the red is still wet, go over the bottom half of the red with purple and continue with the purple to the bottom of the page.
Step 12
Allow this paper to dry.
Step 13
Panel Four: Raindrop Rings
Ask students if they’ve ever seen a drop of water land in a puddle or a lake. Have them share what the water looked like after the drop landed. They probably noticed a circular wave or ripples. When a raindrop hits the surface of the water, the water moves, and creates ripples that look like concentric circles (larger circles around smaller circles). To create our own raindrops, we will be using a few drops of rubbing alcohol and paint.
Step 14
Using the blue plastic art sheets, paint the textured side of the plastic paper with purple watercolor. Fill the whole page.
Step 15
Fill a small pipette with rubbing alcohol. Carefully add one drop to the painted surface. Observe how the drop reacts with the paint! Slowly, add no more than six drops around the paper.
Step 16
After observing the “raindrops”, determine if more raindrops are needed. Be careful not to add too many drops, or they will all blend together and disappear.
Step 17
Allow this paper to dry. End of session one.
Session Two:
Step 01
Panel One: Moonlit Snowflake
Retrieve the paper from session one and observe how the paint dried where the salt was sprinkled.
Step 02
Attach the Tap-N-Glue® Cap on your glue bottle for more control over glue placement. On the Moonlit Snowflake paper from the previous session, draw a snowflake with glue. Press the glue top down to make two diagonal lines across the paper in the shape of an X.
Step 03
Using the glue, draw a vertical line that intersects the center of the X. Add extra lines to the snowflake for more detail.
Step 04
Sprinkle the glitter flakes all over the glue. Be sure to cover the entire snowflake. Do not touch or smear the glue or glitter flakes.
Step 05
Let the glue dry, then shake off the excess glitter flakes.
Step 06
Panel Two: Sunny Day
Using a metallic gold tempera stick, draw a sun in the bottom left corner of the yellow card stock.
Step 07
Make the sun’s rays by cutting the dry glitter paper (from session one) into 6-9 triangles. The rays can be a variety of sizes.
Step 08
Glue the rays down along the edge of the sun, and allow this
to dry.
Step 09
Panel Three: Wind in an Autumn Sky
Using the sunset painting created in session one, draw thick lines with a metallic gold tempera stick over the sunset.
Step 10
Use 2-3 blue Wax Works® sticks to create windy swirls. First, wrap one end of the wax sticks around a pencil one time. Repeat this for all of the wax sticks.
Step 11
Next, lay them down on the sunset painting, and bend them into windy swirls. Press them into the paper with your fingers until they stick. Set this panel aside.
Step 12
Panel Three: Raindrop Rings
Find a circular drop on your dry plastic paper (from session one). Create a circle around it with the silver tempera stick. Create another circle around the outside of that circle, creating
concentric circles.
Step 13
Continue making concentric circles around each raindrop until you’ve filled the page. Do not overlap the circles.
Step 14
Gather all four panels and mount them in the order shown so cool and warm panels are diagonal from each other.
Assessment
Have students share their artwork with a peer and explain what each panel represents. Have students write a few sentences describing how sun, rain, snow, wind, and temperature determine the weather.
Optional sentence starter:
Scientists decide what the weather is like by observing...
Encourage students to include detail about something they learned about each season during the lesson (the sun gives energy in the form of heat and light, wind is invisible, etc.).
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