Art Around the Corner: Fourth Grade Lesson Summaries

Brief Overview | More Information | Fourth Grade Lesson Summaries | Fifth Grade Lesson Summaries

What can art be?
During the first visit to the National Gallery for the year, students use the guiding question, "What can art be?" to explore all three spaces of the museum: the Sculpture Garden, the West Building, and the East Building. Together they compile a list of the many different things they consider to be art and add to the list throughout the year. Students receive sketchbooks and practice looking closely at sculpture by doing a blind contour drawing in the Sculpture Garden.

Why do artists make paintings?
Fourth graders focus on the topic of painting during their visits to the National Gallery of Art. To consider the question "Why do artists make paintings?" they study the works of Paul Cézanne and identify the subjects of paintings: portrait, landscape, still life, and genre. In the studio, students create their own still-life paintings by examining a fruit or vegetable closely, then painting a small detail, paying special attention to textures and color.

How do artists show nature?
To investigate the question "How do artists show nature?" students view a variety of still-life and landscape paintings. They learn about impressionism through the works of Claude Monet, consider how Thomas Cole used nature as symbol in The Voyage of Life, and examine realistic flowers and insects in a Dutch still life. In the studio, students closely observe and sketch real flowers, then add color on a transparency sheet with oil pastels. They layer and blend the oil colors to create vibrant, textured still lifes.

Why does some art not look like real life?
In this lesson, students focus on abstract painting to explore the question, "Why does some art not look like real life?" They discover the formal elements of art—color, line, shape, and texture—and learn how different artists emphasize these elements to express themselves. After discussing Jackson Pollock's Lavender Mist, students use sticks and yarn to drip and drag paint across small canvases to make their own "action paintings." Back in class, they write Haiku poems in response to their paintings.

What do paintings tell us about life in early America?
"What do paintings tell us about life in early America?" guides students' thinking as they travel back in time through nineteenth-century American landscapes. They study Edward Hick's depiction of an early American farm, George Catlin's paintings of Great Plains Indians, and George Inness's Lackawanna Valley. In the studio, students create their own landscape drawings of either farm or Native American life, using stamps and colored pencils.

What can I do when I feel inspired by a work of art?
Fourth graders learn that there are many ways to respond to a work of art, including acting, dancing, sketching, writing, and making art. In this lesson, students are encouraged in the Matisse Cut-Outs gallery to dance with La Négresse and sketch shapes in the Large Composition with Masks. They also write acrostic poems using sensory words in response to other works on the tour, including André Derain's Charing Cross Bridge and John Ward of Hull's Northern Whale Fishery.

Subscribe to Our Free E-mail Newsletters
Stay up to date with the National Gallery of Art by subscribing to our free e-mail newsletters: CASVA, educators, exhibitions, family programs, fellowships/internships, film programs, gallery talks/lectures, music programs, shop, teen programs, and Web. Select as many updates as you wish to receive. To edit your subscriber information, please go to our subscription management page.