3-5 Band Activities
Art
SAS Big Ideas:
- The skills, techniques, elements and principles of the arts can be learned, studied, refined and practiced.
- Artists use tools and resources as well as their own experiences and skills to create art.
- The arts provide a medium to understand and exchange ideas.
- People have expressed experiences and ideas through the arts throughout time and across cultures.
- There are formal and informal processes used to assess the quality of works in the arts.
- People use both aesthetic and critical processes to assess quality, interpret meaning and determine value.
Inspired by Nature
Trees have been an inspiration to artists across America. The United States is filled with National and State forests and wooded areas. Artists are inspired by their environment. If artists live near natural resources such as woods, farms, and streams, their artwork and crafts usually reflect a feeling of nature using wavy lines and soft shapes. Artists and craftsman that live near the city may sometimes have artwork that has straight lines and shapes in it.
Objective: Students will create works of art that capture the essence of nature.
- Pre-visit: Observe a tree branch and discuss how the line changes from the base to the tips. Use paint, brush pressure techniques, and the concept of blending colors to create a painting of a tree branch. Use this painting or create multiple paintings to cut apart and create a low relief collage of tree branches while rotating the direction of the branches.
- Post-visit: Discuss the different types of wood displayed on the tree wall located at the entrance of the Artmobile exhibit Tree to Form. Remark on how the region and environment will change the characteristics of trees and the types of trees. In response, create 3 branch paintings using a variety of colors to reflect different bark types. Create a second collage using color as a design strategy.
Faces in the Wood
Across cultures, people have carved faces into wood. Some cultures create masks, others include them in totem poles; they are even seen as embellishments in 20th century furniture. Consider how artists capture emotions within these carvings. Discuss the variety of tools an artist may use.
Objectives: Students will determine use of objects from decorative to functional. Students will then utilize the attributes observed to create their own decorative art.
- Pre-visit: look at examples of facial carvings and categorize them into functional or nonfunctional sculpture. Challenge the students to find as many faces as they can contained within the Artmobile exhibit Tree to Form. View images on Google search.
- Post-visit: Create portraits using wood scraps, twigs, or a combination of both.
Computer Lab
SAS Big Ideas:
- Technology is created, used and modified by humans.
- Technological literacy is the ability to use, assess and manage technology around us.
Google Earth Trees
With Google Earth 6, you can explore 3D trees all over the world. Discover more than 50 different species of trees in areas such as city parks, neighborhoods, and remote forests. Open Google Earth.
Language Arts
SAS Big Ideas:
- Language is used to communicate and to deepen understanding.
- Spoken language can be represented in print.
- Effective use of vocabulary builds social and academic knowledge
Personification
Objective: Students will consider the subtractive process of carving wood while writing poems or brief stories using personification.
- Pre-visit: Discuss the subtractive process of carving wood.
- Post-visit: Review wood carving and the tools used such as chisels and gouges. Using personification, imagine that you are a block of wood. Write a poem of brief story of your life while being carved. What will you become? Share writings with the class.
Tools around Us
Objective: Students will extend their knowledge of wood working tools and relate them to other areas of life.
- Pre-visit: Create a list of as many tools as you can think of. Identify what tools are used for next to each. Have you ever used a tool? If so why? Did you fix something or use it to make something? Share your lists with the class.
- Post-visit: Discuss types of wood working tools. Are the same tools used for other things than creating art? Can you use some of your tools from the other list to create art? Is it possible to make some of the carving tools you saw on the Artmobile exhibit Tree to Form.
Math
SAS Big Ideas:
- The base-ten number system is a way to organize, represent, and compare numbers using groups of ten and place value.
- Some questions can be answered by collecting, representing, and analyzing data, and the question to be answered determines the data to be collected, how best to collect it, and how best to represent it.
- Some attributes of objects are measureable, e.g., length, mass, capacity, and can be quantified.
- Measures can be estimated by using known referents.
Proportion and Scale
Objective: Students will use a number system ratio of 1:10 to consider proportion and scale of wooden objects.
- Pre-visit: Collect a variety of include natural and manmade wooden objects. Divide the class into groups to identify the objects and create a list.
- Post-visit: Use the collection of wooden objects. Compare and contrast objects by placing them into groups based upon size. Consider which objects are proportionate using a scale of ten units. Create a plotted graph of your findings.
Working from Models
Objective: Students will experience working from miniature models while creating three dimensional forms using wood.
- Pre-visit: Using paper cut outs create miniature models of three dimensional forms. Discuss how forms can be found in sculptures and ask students to consider the forms contained within the artworks they will see in the Artmobile exhibit Tree to Form.
- Post-visit: With a collection of Popsicle sticks, twigs, or toothpicks consider the lines and edges of the paper forms. Using the idea of joining in woodworking, create larger wooden forms based off of the paper miniatures. Discuss how to scale correctly from the smaller to the larger form using ratios such as 1:3 ratios.
Science
SAS Big Ideas:
- Matter has observable and measurable physical properties.
- Different characteristics of plants and animals help some populations survive and reproduce in greater numbers.
- All living things are made of parts that have specific functions.
Wood as Plant
Objective: Students will discuss the natural environment and the resources it produces.
- Pre-visit: Wood is a natural resource that is available to many cultures for creating art. Some artists even use wood to sculpt other natural resources such as plants and vegetables. Look for vegetable carvings in the Artmobile exhibit Tree to Form.
- Post-visit: How do you think artists created the vegetables in the Artmobile from a block of wood? Why did the artists choose a natural material to create a different object from nature? Does this make a statement about our environment and the importance of living things?
West Coast Redwoods vs. African Blackwoods
Objective: Students will investigate the characteristics and environment of redwood vs. blackwood trees.
- Pre-visit: Climate affects the natural elements. Along the west coast of the United States a phenomenon occurs with a certain tree species. Introduce the Redwood forest. Investigate climate conditions and how the attribute to the growth of Redwoods.
- Post-visit: In the Artmobile exhibit Tree to Form, you were introduced to other strange tree species. Consider the African blackwood tree of the Tanzanian Forest. Investigate why this tree has a black core. Consider environment and climate. Compare the findings to the previous activity.
Social Studies
SAS Big Ideas:
- Geography is used to explain the past, interpret the present, and plan for the future.
- Places and regions have physical and human characteristics, and one's culture and experiences may influence perception of place.
- Characteristics, distribution, and migration of human populations impact culture, economic interdependence, settlement patterns, and control of the Earth’s surface.
- Human actions modify the physical environment, and physical systems affect human systems.
Timing Wood
Objective: Students will distinguish wood working based on the development of tools from past to present.
- Pre-visit: Refer to the idea of a person creating tools, kitchen items, household goods from wood in the far past, prehistoric, to the recent past, industrial age.
- Post-visit: Illustrate a timeline of how woodworking has changed as power tools have been invented to replace many of the hand tools used throughout time to create works in wood. How has this changed the idea of a wood worker? In the past, it was rare to see any women in the field. How have these new inventions reshaped the craftsman image? Can children now craft works in wood?
The Spirit of Wood
Objective: Students will compare cultural beliefs regarding wood as a resource and reflect on the beliefs of a craftsman.
- Pre-visit: Discuss how different cultures view the idea of wood as a resource. Compare and contrast European settler’s perception of clearing woods and recycling the material to build the homes and barns located in that area and Native Americans belief that all parts of nature are sacred. How do you define a wood artist of craftsman?
- Post-visit: Consider ways that you could recycle wood around your environment. Reflect on works in the exhibit and the idea that wood was celebrated as a visual and functional art material.