Lesson

Perspective Forest Date Nov 30

Title/Focus
Subject/Grade Time
Grade 3 Art 60 mins
Level Duration

OUTCOMES FROM ALBERTA PROGRAM OF STUDIES

General
Students will use media and techniques, with an emphasis on mixing media and perfecting techniques in
Learning
drawing, painting, print making, sculpture, fabric arts, photography and technographic arts
Outcomes:
Specific • Use drawing tools to make a variety of lines extending beyond Level One into character and
Learning direction—passive, vertical, horizontal, diagonal, parallel.
Outcomes: • Use simple methods to indicate depth or perspective; e.g., increase details in the foreground, use
lighter tones or values in the background, large objects in foreground.
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
Students will:
1. Use perspective to create interesting artwork.

ASSESSMENTS (How I will know students have achieved the objective(s))

• Drawing a one-point perspective forest.

Prior to the Lesson MATERIALS AND EQUIPMENT

• Prepare art room. • Paint
• Prepare images • Pencil
• Construction paper
• Example
• Brushes
• Visualizer
• Images
o https://images.fineartamerica.com/images-
medium-large-5/1-looking-down-the-road-
that-leads-tom-bol.jpg
o https://i.etsystatic.com/7634510/r/il/3ce2e
9/1932358473/il_fullxfull.1932358473_60q5
.jpg
PROCEDURE
Introduction Time
• Prepare the materials for students during recess.
o There are 4 tables so I’ll have ~5 students at each.
o I will need a thick and thin paint brush for each student, a rinse cup for each table, a palette
with the 5 colours for each table, a piece of paper for each student, and 3 q-tips for each
student.
• When students come back in from recess, tell them we’ll be going to the art room.
o They’ll each need to bring a pencil
• Lead students to the art room, before we enter, remind students they should sit at a table, and not 15
touch anything until we start.
• This class is about perspective.
o Who can tell me what perspective means?
o Could be the art definition or more likely the social studies definition. If the latter, I can
easily connect it to the artistic definition.

Adapted from a template created by Dr. K. Roscoe 1

 • Bring up the picture of a road and show students how the road is straight but the points meet at the
middle as the road gets farther away.
o This is called a vanishing point. Make sure they know what vanishing means
o Show the image of the forest and show how the vanishing point is surrounded by an
invisible circle.
• “This is what we’re going to paint!”
Body Time
• Bring up a piece of paper on the visualizer and get students to start by putting their name on the
back and picking a point near the center of the page and put a small circle there.
• Then, have students start their trees near the vanishing point, then use their pencil to draw them to
the edge.
o Tell them that since trees are all different sizes and thicknesses, there’s should be too.
o Use the rulers provided to make the trunks.
• At this point, show the students my previously done example. Ask them if they can see the issue in
mine.
o Looking for the answer: the trees don’t lead to the same vanishing point.
o Be ready to be brutally criticized for your art skills.
35
• Then we can take our brushes to paint the trunks. They can use darker brown to accent the trunks,
I’ll display this on the board using the visualizer.
• The next step is to use q-tips to paint the leaves on the trees. There should be dark green, medium
green, and light green paint to make some variety.
o Again because of perspective, the leaves near the top of the trees should be smaller ince
they’re farther away.
o Exemplify a couple leaves, then let students continue on their own.
o Bring up a finished example on the board for students to see as they finish their trees.
• After the leaves, students can take their thin brush and the dark colour used to accent the trees and
draw some branches to add detail.
Closure Time
• When students are done, they should sit back in their chair, close their eyes, and imagine
themselves lying on the forest floor, looking up at the trees for one minute.
o Then look at what they have created. If it looks like what they imagined, they can be done.
If they think of something else they want to add, they should do that, then repeat. 10
• Get students to put their pictures on the drying rack when they’re done.
• At 3:45, get students to go to their hooks and wait in the boot room for the bell.
• After the bell has rung, go back to the art room to clean up.

Rationale

The framework for this lesson is an art project where I optimize cognitive load as best I can. The main driver of this is hav ing

the visualizer (document reader) to display a tutorial up on the board. This lets students know exactly the goal of the project,

and how to do the somewhat complicated artistic techniques. By having a model to follow along with, the extraneous load is

reduced to only a student’s own hands. In an art lesson, I could just put an example up on the board and guide students how

to make it, but by doing it with the students, I can clearly assess their ability to understand perspective rather than just their

ability to draw. Furthermore, I designed the steps with germane load in mind. We start with a pencil draft of the trees so if

students don’t like what they have, they can very easily erase and try again. I believe this gives the students better contro l of

their own art, as well as giving them practice and an outline before the more permanent painting step. This idea is echoed at

Adapted from a template created by Dr. K. Roscoe 2

the end of the project by getting students to visualize the real-life scene in their minds. This splits the cognitive load between

the painting and trying to visualize it in their heads, as well as centers itself around the idea that visuals and spoken wor d go

well together.

It is integral to an art lesson to have visual aids. The visualization step at the end reinforces this, and so do the visuals at the

start of a lesson. Being able to draw with perspective isn’t an innate ability. Accordingly, by showing students very simple

examples of a vanishing point, and perspective in general. Since every student can understand how a road looks, and how it

looks when they’re looking up at the trees, using these visuals and exactly explaining (and showing) how to replicate it on t he

paper allows students to assimilate the artistic terminology into their existing schema. Additionally, the segment of looking at

my poorly done example is adapted from a technique I learned about in my assessment class called “what not to write” (or in

this case, draw). By giving students this opportunity to discuss what potential issues might be, they can avoid them in their

own projects.

Reflection

Overall, I’m very happy with how this lesson went. There were some issues due to disorganization, but it had very little effect

of the quality of the lesson overall. The issues started before the lesson even began. I was unaware I would have to book the

art room, so I had to ask Michelle to rearrange her day so we would be able to get the students in there. Unfortunately, the

class that was in there before us stayed an extra 20 minutes giving me only 10 minutes to prepare the room for 20 students.

This caused a little bit of a hassle in the lesson to come, but I don’t feel it impeded the quality of the lesson that badly. My

introduction went exactly how I wanted it to. The students didn’t know the word perspective, but they all understood the

concept after viewing the pictures I included in the lesson. I also added on the fly, a body activity to understand perspecti ve

where I asked them to move their arms along the wall in their field of view and watch how their arms go together as the wall

moves away from them. I believe this is what cemented the idea in the students’ heads. The students were able to follow

along with the step-by-step demonstration they had going through the first half of the lesson. I adapted my plan part way

through the lesson because I didn’t take into account the different speeds at which students work. Accordingly, I only

demonstrated the techniques for part of the picture, and let students fill in the rest (i.e. I drew only a couple trees, then

painted only one of them, then only did a couple leaves). This let students who were ahead know what to do, but let students

who were behind see every step. The final product was also great. All the students, save for a couple who went a little wild

Adapted from a template created by Dr. K. Roscoe 3

with the artistic liberty, produced exactly what I was looking for and clearly understood the concept of single point

perspective and vanishing points. On the poorer side, because I had such little prep time, I had to mix paint as students wer e

actively working on their art. This caused some students to have to wait for more paint which is time they filled by getting out

of their chairs and walking around. I likely should have just told them to make more leaves since most of the students went

pretty light on the leaves. I also completely forgot a sponge activity for students to do when they were done, so I improvised

a little gallery where I told students to look at all the drying art and check out what other students had done. I thought it

worked okay, but the class was still pretty chaotic, and I could have had at least some learning done in that time period.

During the beginning discussion part of the lesson, I had 2 students who were disrupting their table by making noise and

fidgeting. I gave them reminders of expectations, but they didn’t stop so I removed them from the table and put them closer

to me which made them much less of a distraction. Michelle gave me some great feedback about the lesson as well. She

suggested giving the activity a name and overview beforehand so students are ready , going deeper into class expectations

given how we’re in a new environment so students will forget how to act. One aspect of this is telling students how to clean

up before we start the lesson. I also completely let that fly over my head when creating this lesson plan , so with 15 minutes

left of the time period, I scrambled to get students to clean up. Almost every student did what was asked of them in this

chaotic fashion, which is nice. However, it very easily could have been much better. I also forgot to prepare a material the day

before, so I had to run out in the middle of the school day to pick some up. They weren’t integral to the quality of the lesson,

so if I were teaching on my own, it wouldn’t have been the end of the world, but it’s still worth pointing out the trend of

disorganization that plagued this lesson. I have to say, I’m very happy with the content of the lesson. Even the students who I

observed to be weaker in this area, were able to complete it to the best of their ability. There were kinks in the places that I

would expect a new teacher to have them in, but none that were hugely detrimental to the quality overall. I think I achieved

my goal of having an optimized cognitive load here, using these observations as evidence. I believe I achieved this through

sticking to PEN principle #2 and by slowly introducing this new artistic concept in a variety of ways allowing students to more

easily assimilate it into their schema.

Adapted from a template created by Dr. K. Roscoe 4