Lesson Plans

Describing Designs

http://illuminations.nctm.org/LessonDetail.aspx?ID=L308

A lesson plan for Grades 3–4 Visual Arts Education and Mathematics

Provider: National Council of Teachers of Mathematics

In this lesson, the second of an eight-part unit from Illuminations titled “Paper Quilts,” students create designs and describe them to classmates using fractional and geometric terms. The lesson provides a context for using the vocabulary terms “horizontal,” “vertical,” “square,” “rectangle,” “triangle,” “diagonal,” “one-half,” and “one-fourth.”

North Carolina Curriculum Alignment

Visual Arts Education (2001)

Grade 3

  • Goal 2: The learner will develop skills necessary for understanding and applying media, techniques, and processes.
    • Objective 2.01: Expands control and manipulation of the media and tools which may include the following:
      • Photography - sun prints
      • Drawing - chalk, fine and broad markers, colored pencils, creates a variety of lines with tip, point and side, computer and software.
      • Cut paper - papers, found objects, fibers, glue, sharp-edged scissors, curling, scoring and stapling, cutting a variety of single and multiple shapes.
      • 3-D - paper mache, small hand tools.
      • Printmaking - cardboard
      • Painting - liquid acrylics, large and small brushes, computer and software.
      • Ceramic - coil construction, compound pinch and slab, addition, smoothing, self-created stamps.
      • Fibers - Knotting, small hand looms for fibers.
  • Goal 3: The learner will organize the components of a work into a cohesive whole through knowledge of organizational principles of design and art elements.
    • Objective 3.03: Identify geometric shapes: circle, square, rectangle, triangle, diamond, oval, octagon, and pentagon.
    • Objective 3.04: Use a variety of geometric and organic shapes in creating own work.

Grade 4

  • Goal 2: The learner will develop skills necessary for understanding and applying media, techniques, and processes.
    • Objective 2.02: Use additional art media, techniques and processes which may include:
      • Fibers - stitchery, a variety of fiber weaving techniques, felting and quilting
      • Cut paper - complex symmetrical folding and cutting;
      • Sculpture - experiments with varied tools including small hand tools.

Mathematics (2004)

Grade 3

  • Goal 1: Number and Operations - The learner will model, identify, and compute with whole numbers through 9,999.
    • Objective 1.05: Use area or region models and set models of fractions to explore part-whole relationships.
      • Represent fractions concretely and symbolically (halves, fourths, thirds, sixths, eighths).
      • Compare and order fractions (halves, fourths, thirds, sixths, eighths) using models and benchmark numbers (zero, one-half, one); describe comparisons.
      • Model and describe common equivalents, especially relationships among halves, fourths, and eighths, and thirds and sixths.
      • Understand that the fractional relationships that occur between zero and one also occur between every two consecutive whole numbers.
      • Understand and use mixed numbers and their equivalent fraction forms.
  • Goal 3: Geometry - The learner will recognize and use basic geometric properties of two- and three-dimensional figures.
    • Objective 3.01: Use appropriate vocabulary to compare, describe, and classify two- and three-dimensional figures.

Grade 4

  • Goal 1: Number and Operations - The learner will read, write, model, and compute with non-negative rational numbers.
    • Objective 1.03: Solve problems using models, diagrams, and reasoning about fractions and relationships among fractions involving halves, fourths, eighths, thirds, sixths, twelfths, fifths, tenths, hundredths, and mixed numbers.
  • Goal 3: Geometry - The learner will recognize and use geometric properties and relationships.
    • Objective 3.03: Identify, predict, and describe the results of transformations of plane figures.
      • Reflections.
      • Translations.
      • Rotations.