Fourth Grade Art Program

Lessons this year include:

Further study of the "elements of art".
See the ArtLex article on the elements of art.
Further study of the "principles of design".
See the ArtLex articles on the principles of design.
Arizona's art heritage. Fourth graders at Sonoran Sky will take a field trip to the Heard Museum to enjoy a program about the arts of two of Arizona's Native American tribes, the Hopi and the Navajo.
See the ArtLex article on Native American art.
Realism and abstraction. Please visit a gallery of drawings made by students in groups A, B, C, D, E, and S when they studied realism and abstraction. Five pictures from those galleries are below.

Trevor, An Eagle Landing on Snow, from Realistic to Abstract

Elysha, Brown and White Dog, from Realistic to Abstract

Kevin, Parrot, from Realistic to Abstract

Ben, Owl in a Tree, from Realistic to Abstract

Taylor, House Cat, from Realistic to Abstract

Art in context.
Game theory & maze design.
Ceramics. Students will make pottery using pinch, coil and slab construction methods, and sculptures of desert tableaus with ceramic clay.
First work on a potter's wheel. Our school has two potter's wheels, and every fourth grader works on those wheels once during an art class, and once with professional potter Lisa Howe, who has volunteered to work with fourth graders every year since 1997.
See ArtLex articles on ceramics, pinch, coil, and slab construction; sculpture, tableau, and potter's wheel.
Drawing the human figure.
See ArtLex articles on drawing, figure, and model.

Here are links to pages about the program for other grades, and what we emphasize in each grade:

1st & 2nd -- creativity with color, pattern, and large tools. Pinch pots. Visit our gallery of 1st graders' family-portraits.

3rd -- landscapes, seeing near and far (creating an illusion of depth), self-portraits. Visit our gallery of 3rd grade students' self-portraits.

5th -- surrealism, achieving a likeness, using an ever wider variety of media, and America's art heritage.

6th -- architectural design and history, slab-constructed pottery, and the world's art history.