Teaching the Art Elements with Google Slides

In June we were on a two-days-a-week schedule. It was kind of tricky because the specialist classes had to be scheduled in. Some specialists also had MYP classes, and the upper school was on a different schedule which added to the trickiness.

The art teacher asked for some extra time, so I offered her a class period thinking she would come in and teach. I was wrong and was given a lesson plan. Don't assume anything!

The lesson was on art elements. Students were to make rectangle art with colored paper, using the elements of art to make an art piece.

I don't know what happened - actually I do know - but the student quality was not good and most students were just slapping paper together somewhat randomly. They were not into it.

So I decided to give it another try. But the second time I wanted to use Google Slides. I thought it would be more engaging for the students and could show them some new skills like aligning and centering shapes, but also students were using coolors.co to look for color palettes and they needed devices.

The new directions were:

1. Find your slide in the Google Slide deck
2. Go to coolors.co and choose a palette
3. Make rectangles on your slide taking the space element of art into consideration.
4. How can you add texture?
5. Color the background with one color from the palette (Show how to change the background color using the HEX color)
6. Color the rectangles using other colors (Show how to add HEX color to shape)

When you are finished, add a screenshot to Seesaw and answer the questions:

1. What did you do differently this time compared to last time?
2. What elements of art did you use and where are they in your picture?

Results the second time were much better. 


Students were able to show their art (if they selected it to show) at the student led conferences.