Castle and Sun with Paul Klee

Getting to know the world's greatest artists is an easy way to introduce young students to famous artists. I was preparing a lesson that I hoped could be finished with a sub during an anticipated absence. We started with a reading of the Paul Klee book from this series. Students learned about abstract artworks. I shared a print out of castle and sun. We talked about castles they have seen or made (almost every student has made a sand castle, or a castle from blocks, so this was a good entry point for our discussion). I told them we were going to draw, as if we were building with blocks or legos. They made a 1" grid on brown kraft paper. Students who finished early drew a castle from their imagination on scrap paper. During the next class I showed them how to convert their castle into one made of colored blocks. In hindsight, I might actually bring legos or blocks in next year and have them start with that as a group activity at their table. I've actually done that activity at the high school with great success (maybe it was the novelty of 15 year olds using blocks).

We used construction paper crayons to make the colors pop. There are a lot of really nice castles that are not finished yet. Can't wait to see them develop.