Art and Cross Curricular Planning
At Detroit Prep a lot of care is taken with our curriculum and planning for our content area(s). We want our students to become experts in their Expedition Topics, experiencing the topics through experts, field studies and from multiple different sources as well as settings. One of the other settings the scholars are focused on their expedition topics is in the art room.
Our art curriculum is designed to help support the expedition learning process through the creation of part of the student’s final products as well as a heavy focus on projects that are under the topic’s umbrella. A good example of both of these approaches is our third grade art curriculum. At the beginning of the school year, the third graders investigate the Wide World of Frogs in one of their science expeditions. During this study, students create part of their final products, Frog Trading Cards based on the frogs (and some toads) from Michigan in the art room. The part of the project students complete with me is their scientifically accurate frog illustrations. We learn about scientific illustrators as a job, using shapes to help us draw complex images as well as draw from observation by looking at a reference guide like a scientist through multiple drafts. The goal of the drawings is to be as realistic as possible so that a viewer would be able to learn about the frog from it. We also do several skill supporting projects painting frog habitats in the style of Claude Monet, technical drawing videos with different frogs as the subject matter, a simple yoga frog art piece that introduces artists to movement and a just for funsies, frog prince painting.
Later on in the school year, third grade turns its attention to water ecosystems. While the scholars do not create parts of their final product within the art space, they still create artwork that supports their expedition learning topic by being on theme. We create multiple projects that either directly tie to water access, like our Rain Barrel assemblages that upcycle aluminum cans, or through various ways water can be depicted in art genres specifically focusing on sea scapes.
While I’ve only highlighted third grade artwork in this blog post, each grade level has at least one, if not multiple projects that are aligned with their various expedition topics. Another way I’m working on using art to help support expedition learning is creating a mini curriculum for our create labs. I’m doing this by building a map that can be accessed by classroom crew leaders and will have various art lesson plans that can be completed during the afternoon. This way students are experiencing making art that supports their major learning both in the art room and in their crew room. I’m also very excited about this because I have expedition themed lesson plans that I’m currently unable to fit into my art maps. This way DP artists will still be able to do the projects even if I won’t be able to guide them through it. I look forward to seeing all of the various expedition themed art pieces on display during Celebrations of Learning for a long time to come.
