Going on a Hunt...An Architectural Elements Hunt!

Many artists, throughout the history of art, have painted, drawn and designed building, cities, maps, and even floor plans. Architecture is the profession of designing buildings, open areas, communities, and other constructions. This could include town planning and landscape architecture. Some of the elements you see on your architecture scavenger hunt today would be things planned and designed by an architect.

Frank Lloyd Wright is a famous architect and designed his buildings to fit with the environment and location such as Falling Water House. He designed everything from houses, schools, to museums and skyscrapers. He invented a cantilever to reach out over the falling water of the falls. If you wish to see an aerial video of Frank Lloyd Wright's Falling Water House, watch the video below.

If you wish to see more buildings designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and learn more about his life, watch the video below.

After your Architecture Scavenger Hunt, it's now your turn to be the architect. You have many options, you could ....

1. Sit outside your home and draw your house and all the trees and plants around it, using your skills in observation.
2. Design your dream house and include everything you wish you had during this quarantine.
3. Draw a floor plan for your current home, include the furniture and all rooms.
4. Draw a floor plan for your dream home.

To download a copy of the Architecture Scavenger Hunt, click here.

Baseline Portfolio Drawing, Rules and Procedures

The first two to three weeks of school for all grades allows for much practice of the art room rules and procedures. Each day students come to the art room, we quickly review the art room rules, procedures, and expectations, how to receive punches in individual Art "buck" punch cards and gain points for Rainbow Club as a class. A new activity I created to make the explanation of procedures and rules more exciting was an art room scavenger hunt. Second grade students, working with their table groups, were given a list of items to seek and find in the art room ranging from Art Jobs and Staplers to scrap paper drawers and sign language signs. First and kindergarten students were shown pictures from the art room in a keynote presentation and together as a class pointed to the found items in the room.

The first two weeks also allow me to gain valuable information about students' current skill levels in drawing and name writing. I call these drawings baseline portfolio drawings. Each year kindergarten through second grade, students will draw a self portrait and "My House" drawing without guidance on 9”x12” drawing paper and with a #2 pencil. These drawings usually take 2-3 days and students will add color with crayons (kindergarten) or colored pencils (first and second grades). For those students who finish early, we talk about adding "details" to give the viewer more information. For example, within the background of their self portraits, I tell them to draw items that tell me more about their hobbies and interests.

Second grade students this week will also list items to add to this year's Rainbow Club Chart and as a group VOTE FOR the ACTIVITIES they like best TO ADD to the RAINBOW CLUB chart.

Anchor Standard 1 (K-2): Generate and conceptualize artistic ideas and work.
Anchor Standard 2 (K-2): Organize and develop artistic ideas and work.
Anchor Standard 10 (K-2): Synthesize and relate knowledge and personal experiences to create art.

Scavenger Hunt (Rainbow Club Day Reward)

My 2nd graders earned over 40 Rainbow Club points for the month of September and were rewarded with a "Design Elements" scavenger hunt activity.  I found this nifty "design elements" scavenger hunt at The Art of Education (AOE) and tweaked it to fit my classroom needs, including images next to some of the words for my lower level readers. Students used iPads and worked in groups of three to four students to find the items on the list, zoom in close, and photograph. We not only searched the art room, but traveled all the way down to the main office looking for items from our list.

Next class period, working in their same groups, students will create a word photo collage using the images from last class period's scavenger hunt. The app they will be using is called WordFoto. Students will find an image and use the bolded word from the scavenger hunt list to fill the image with words (see example below). I hope to use this app again for other projects in the art room. I have some great ideas for the future, the possibilities are endless.

This example below is one created by a 2nd grade student's photo. She selected this fire alarm because it was a rectangle and found it in a hallway on the way to art. In WordFoto, she selected the image from the photo library on the iPad, cropped it, and created a new word set with "rectangle".  The app does the rest!