Visual arts provide opportunities for creativity and expression, and help develop problem-solving and small motor skills. Art lessons include class discussions, literature, games, demonstrations, historical reference, and integration of the core curriculum, playful practice, and reflection.

• Color
• Shape
• Line
• Form
• Texture
• Value
• Space

• Pattern
• Contrast
• Emphasis
• Balance
• Movement
• Rhythm
• Unity

• Drawing
• Painting
• Printmaking
• Collage
• Ceramics
• Sculpture
• Textile arts
• Mixed media
• Digital art

• Artists (contemporary and past)
• Styles
• Movements
• World cultures
• Architecture
• Art history
• Art vocabulary
• Careers in visual art
• Props and scenery for the 8th grade play performance

• Employ creative thinking
• Creates original art that expresses their personal ideas
• Understand how emotion and feeling can be conveyed through art
• Continued understanding of color mixing
• Recognize and name secondary colors
• Continued understanding of warm and cool colors
• Continued understanding of tints, shades, and tones
• Continued understanding of complementary colors
• Continued understanding of analogous colors
• Continued understanding of one-point perspective
• Beginning understanding of two-point perspective
• Continued understanding of space and basic rules of perspective, foreground, middle round, and background
• Continued exploration and utilize a variety of materials with increasing comfort and proficiency
• Improve skills in seeing, noticing details, and discussing artwork
• Understand that there are many different kinds of art
• Be able to identify and create a variety of lines and shapes
• Be able to identify implied and actual texture
• Gain continued exposure to different kinds of art
• Continued understanding of how things organized on the paper (the composition) effects the work of art
• Beginning understanding of movement, rhythm, and unity
• Beginning use of digital tools to research and create art
• Be able to identify and show a direction of light in artwork through shading
• Be able to look at works of art and discuss content and visual techniques
• Understand that there is a variety of different kinds of art – from the most realistic to the most abstract
• Before a project, have students sketch out various ways to organize the same images in a picture and discuss the different effects
• Beginning ability with shading from dark to light
• Beginning ability in facial proportion and figure proportion
• Show works of art and have more in-depth discussion around how the artist used various techniques what the art is about, how content is related to historical context, and how the art makes us feel
• Continued use of Sketchbooks to explore planning and ideas in art making
• Self-assessment and reflection through writing, rubrics, and discussion
• Construct
• Cut
• Glue
• Draw
• Sculpt
• Paint
• Print
• Weave

• Demonstrations
• Practice
• Experimentation
• Class discussions
• Literature
• Games
• Reflection (oral or written)
• Individual projects
• Group projects
• Open-ended projects or independent study