Jacob Lawrence Unit

JACOB LAWRENCE UNIT

Jacob Lawrence is one of my all time favorites. I had a blast creating this unit, and my Studio Superstars jumped into the projects with two feet. I have to admit that I love art history, so I really try to find engaging ways to relay a lot of information about the life of the artist to my students. For this unit, we started by checking out the interactive Jacob Lawrence site created by the Phillips Foundation, and a Jacob Lawrence "kit" full of posters, information, and activities that I borrowed from a local museum. After learning about Lawrence's life and work, we got busy creating. 

The Kindergarten and 1st grade artists used what they had learned about Lawrence's style and his love of Harlem to create their own city mural together. Each artist picked a background color and used bubble wrap, plastic cups, sponges, and cardboard shapes to create buildings, houses, hospitals, schools, etc. The artists loved this process! We let our designs dry, and then cut them out and modge podged them to a pre-painted background. I have included a view snapshots from our mural below.

In the above photo you can see all the great posters I was able to use from the teaching "kit." I also made a bunch of small color copies of Lawrence's work that I split up into envelopes. I put up a few questions about Lawrence's work and style, and then passed out an envelope to each student. Together we discovered the answer to each question by sorting the contents in the envelopes correctly. The final result was a great review, and an interesting wall of Lawrence work and color to enjoy while creating.

The third grade artist were inspired to create their own mini series. Each series told either a migration or a hero story, and the drawings were created by applying one color over the three pieces before moving on to the next color.

The fifth graders used Twistees to recreate some of the subjects of 

Lawrence's famous paintings. It was fascinating to see which subjects students were drawn too, 

and it gave each student a unique opportunity to get to know a famous work of art.