Vessels in Greek Art, Pre-Visit

This lesson will focus on what vessels are, where we can find them in our everyday world, and the concept that vessels are containers that hold something. This lesson is the first lesson of two.

A lesson plan for grade 2 Visual Arts Education, English Language Arts, and Information Skills

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Related pages

• African Masks (Pre-Visit): This lesson will observe and describe several masks from different parts of Africa housed in the Smithsonian Institute (National Museum of African Art) Washington, D.C. Students will use the internet to view the Smithsonian's virtual exhibits. There are two lessons to follow this pre-visit. In the first, the students will explore African masks at the Ackland Art museum in Chapel Hill. In a culminating activity the students will make their own masks with some personal materials brought from home. (Post-visit activity)

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• Learn more about English language arts.

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Learning outcomes

The student will define and discuss the term “vessel” through exploration and discussion of everyday containers, and write 6-8 sentences in his/her art journal about a vessel of their own.

Teacher planning

Time required for lesson

45 Minutes

Materials/resources

• examples of vessels (the day before, remind the children to bring in a vessel from home, or you can bring several vessels from your home, e.g. a coke bottle, a vase, a cup, a bowl, mixing bowl, pot, etc.)
• chart paper
• markers
• art journals
• pencils
• dictionary

Technology resources

None

Pre-activities

Read Copper Tin Cup by Carole Lexa Schaefer. (Stanley Fellows is the illustrator.) This book is found online at http://www.amazon.com for $11.19. It is a about a young boy who has a copper tin cup with his initials on it. He learns that his cup has been passed down to him through generations. He discovers that his grandmother, father, and grandfather have used the cup before giving it to him. Have a discussion about the word “Container” (an object that holds something). Ask the children to bring in an example of a container from their home to school tomorrow (optional). Otherwise, you can bring containers from home.

Activities

1. Put the everyday containers around the room. Have the children walk around looking at each container.
2. Once the children have had time to explore the everyday containers, bring all the children into your circle area. Have one child get a dictionary and look up our new word, “vessel.” Use the chart paper to brainstorm all of the vessels they saw around the room today.
3. Once you have the chart paper filled with everyday vessels, discuss why vessels are important and how we use them. Have each child return to his/her seat.
4. Pass out the children’s art journals. Have the children write 6-8 sentences about one of the following prompts. The prompt could be, “Pick a vessel and write a story about what you keep in your vessel” or “Pretend you lost your vessel, “Write about the adventure you have in finding your vessel.” (The children could choose a vessel from the chart paper list.)
5. Remind the children to use correct punctuation and capitalization.
6. Have an “Author’s Chair.” Children can volunteer to come up and read their entry from their art journals.
7. Close the lesson by telling students that they will see very, very old vessels on their next trip to the art museum.

Assessment

Look for 3 of the 4 following goals in the child’s writing:

• Does the child include a type of a vessel in his/her story or journal entry?
• Does the child include the concept that his/her vessel can hold something?
• Does the child use correct punctuation? (in particular, periods, commas, and capitalization)
• Does the child’s journal entry construct several sentences on the topic?

Supplemental information

Teachers may want to look at the following titles of Greek vessel art pieces as attachments below:

• Bucci
• Kylix
• Lekythos

They will be used in Lesson two called “Vessels in Greek Art, The Visit” and Lesson three called “Vessels in Greek Art, The Post Visit.” See http://www.learnnc.org for these next two lessons.

Related websites

This lesson will lead to the exploration of Greek vessels at a local museum. For background information, see the following sites:

The Ackland Art Museum’s homepage under the Education section.
http://www.ackland.org/index.php

List of virtual museums on the web
http://www.icon.org/vlmp

Comments

We plan to execute this lesson in September 2000. See Vessel in Greek Art (The Visit) and Vessels in Greek Art (The Post-Visit).