Montalvo Arts Center / Teaching Artists in the Schools Residency / 4th grade, 10 session project, Schallenberger Elementary School, San Jose, CA, Fall 2016.

Waterscape of our Region – Arts Integration into the 4th grade curriculum: California Regions.

This is an important exercise for the students to better understand the geography of their region, the diversity of the waterscapes, and to realize the importance of water, fresh and salted. It is excellent for observation skills and perseverance.

Each student receives a printed photo of one of the amazing waterscape of our region from photos I have taken, and draw the main lines of that waterscape: line of a mountain, beach, pond, shape of a wetland, horizon, cliff. They first draw with a pencil, then with an oil pastel in preparation for watercolor painting. The photo has four quadrants and so has the paper. It helps to understand where a line starts and where it ends, how it is slanted and how it is curved. This is an observation drawing, where the students have to draw what they sees, not what they think it looks like.
Great exercise for concentration and independent work – although this set of classes I am working with has 33 students per class, so it is quite of a challenge!

Lesson plan here.