Elementary Art Book Reviews
1. Teaching the Element of Shape (With Math Integration)
This is a rhyming book for kindergarten or pre-k students. It often repeats the phrase “Round is a” and is followed by a round object in our everyday lives. It uses the same method to introduce other shapes such as the square and triangle. The book has a cultural connection to the Latino culture and includes a great glossary for higher level thinking. The book is full of amazing illustrations and can also be integrated with a music concept. For this book, I will have my students make shape collages. They will make prints from stamps of everyday objects and group them in oversized outlines of their corresponding shape. For example, all objects that are round will go into a giant circle while square objects will be printed in a giant square. I could also have the students draw shapes of various sizes, cut them out, and then glue them down to make a piece of abstract art.
2. Teaching the Element of Line
This is also a rhyming book with a great rhythm that students tend to enjoy. It talks about and shows pictures to represent almost any sort of line you can think of. At the end of the story, it asks the kids to find lines that are not in this book. I will use it to spark my students’ creativity about how many different ways that we can make lines. Then we can create some of those lines with a paper sculpture (for kindergarteners) or gluing pipe cleaners to cardstock (for pre-k students). The students will use examples from the book to created and explore different types of lines.
3. Teaching the Element of Texture
This is a non-fiction book that teaches about texture. However, it teaches about texture as it relates to science, making observations, and identifying objects by their properties. It names many objects like rocks, tree trunks, cotton, tables, chewing gum, and a cactus. However, it also introduces students to many texture words like bumpy, smooth, wavy, and rough. This is a great book to integrate implied texture as it relates to art with science and identifying objects by making observations of their identifiable properties. I would tie things concepts together by having the students make a relief sculpture to show and experiment with different textures. They will use spray glue (probably) to glue various objects from nature like leaves and small pebbles, or string and fabrics, for example, to a cardboard circle. Then they will cover their circles with aluminum foil. When they do this they will get to actually feel the different textures with their fingertips as they massage the foil into place. After it is secure I will spray paint them black for them and allow them to dry for the next day. Finally they will varnish/sand the surface with a piece of steel wool. This will show/expose the texture even more by rubbing off the spray paint.
4. Teaching the element of Color
This is a book for the younger kiddos and asks them to “tap the page” and each time they do colors appear. Then they touch again to take some blue and mix it with red to see purple. It names the colors and shows what happens when you mix the colors. It also asks the reader to do things like shake and tilt the book. When they do it shows different colors and how they change and mix. It is very interactive and I think it would pair perfectly with a finger painting activity. We could even take examples from the book to make our own color book by finger painting. I think the kids would love doing it and learn a lot about color in the process.
5. Teaching the element of Value
This is a comical book filled with resignation letters from a student’s crayons. They have all quit and various problems with the kid and each other. In the end, the student colored a picture that would make each color happy and showed it to his teacher. She gave his a gold star for his creativity. I think I could use this book to teach value by using the theme from the book. I would tell all my students that all of our crayons have quit and probably for the same reasons in the book, but now we have to use paint to make an ice cream cone of different shades. I will have premade shapes, like in the picture above, for them to cut out. We will paint the cone brown and use only red, black, and white for the ice cream scoops. The students will start with red scoops mixed with a teeny tiny dab of black, and as they continue to add more white to the red, each scoop will become lighter. This way, they can actually see the dark to light change in value in their ice cream scoops. After they dry, they can be glued to cardstock or cardboard. This activity can also be used to explore texture and color and can be done with almost any color.