Portrait of a Sixth Grader
This 5 lesson Unit asks 5th graders to reflect on what they are passionate about, what makes up who they are and who they want to be in 6th grade. Through the techniques of collage, layering, and visual journaling, students are able to form their identity into portraits of their 6th grade selves.
5th Grade

Tiny Door Installation
This 4 lesson unit looks at contemporary artist Karen Anderson and her public art project Tiny Doors ATL. Just like the covers of books tell a story about what is inside, students begin to write their own wonder-filled story and create a tiny door out of clay to communicate it!
2nd & 4th Grade

(Extra)Ordinary Objects
In this 5 lesson unit, students found inspiration in the world around them by identifying an ordinary object that is personally meaningful to them, and making it extraordinary through the technique of pattern finding modeled after our exemplar artist, Nigel Peake. They toldothers about it in an artist statement. Finally, students learned what critiques are, why they are important, and how to do a post-it note critique.
3rd & 4th Grade

Imaginary Animals
Students had to use their imagination to mash up 3 different animals and turn it into one animal. Afterwards, students learned about habitats, horizon lines, and watercolor & oil pastels to create a home for their animal. We finished this lesson with “story time,“ and every person got to share their unique animal to the class!
Kindergarten & 1st Grade

Land Art Inspiration
Students thought about the ephemeral nature of the natural world in this lesson. I showed them contemporary artist, Andy Goldsworthy and his Land Art. They made their very own temporal land art, drew patterns from it, and made their own original art piece based on it. Look at the similarities between their land art and paper art. They made amazing artistic choices and loved the process of exploring outdoors. We all agreed by the end of the lesson that art does not have to be in a museum or cost money to be considered art!
Ages: K-5.

During this lesson we talked about how humans invade animal habitats to create cities and towns to live in. Humans expect animals to adapt to us instead of us adapting to their needs. All of my students thought this was wrong and wanted to bring awareness to this issue. Here are their voices bringing satirical artwork to a very real situation we deal with in Tallahassee and around the world. You will find fireflies finding shelter in a dark movie theatre away from he light pollution, alligators sleeping in beds, cougars roaming around the city streets, octopus changing their eating habits, Turtles looking for food at the grocery store, otters taking a bath in the kitchen sink, and exaggerated drawings of squirrels adapting to humans by getting their teeth gnawed down at the orthodontist (their teeth have been growing too rapidly from eating soft people food). I hope you enjoy!
Ages K-5.

Students were challenged to look at flowers differently during this lesson. They were asked to magnify them with their eyes (drawing from direct observation), and hands (their petals had to go off the edge of the page). There is so much joy in spreading color all over a giant piece of paper. Thanks Georgia O’Keefe for inspiring us in this way!
Ages: K-5