Lesson Plan #: AELP-INT0130
Date: January 28, 2000
Grade Level(s): 2, 3, 4
Subject(s):
Duration: Approximately three 30-minutes
Description: An interdisciplinary project involving technology, art, and motor skills.
Goals: The project will show the students how to be responsible when working with others and with scissors. The students will use their fine motor skills to create a pumpkin, which will be placed on a bulletin board with all the students in the class. This lesson will allow the children to use their previously known computer knowledge to work with the computer. The areas on the computer that will be used are the drawing tools, Mirosoft Word, and exploring the Internet. This will also tie in with the unit we will be discussing next week, farming and the plants farmers grow in Pennsylvania.
Objectives: The students will be able to:
Internet and Writing Activities
Give the directions for the activity.
The teacher will explain that the students will be working on the Internet to find pictures of pumpkins, the students will be using computer drawing tools, and the students will create a story about themselves and the pumpkin being best friends. All of these computer concepts were taught last year. If any of the students need to be refreshed on any of the concepts, it is the teacher that will help the students. The students are not permitted to help others since these activities are for a grade.
The teacher will make sure all the students connect to the Internet on their computers correctly.
The teacher will tell the students to go to any search engine (e.g. Yahoo or AltaVista and find a picture of their liking and print this picture out.
Once the picture is printed, the students will go to the drawing tools and to the best of their ability try to draw the pumpkin that they printed. Various colors and shapes must be used for the pumpkin. e.g. Triangles for the eyes and light green for the leaves on the pumpkin.
When the students have their pumpkins drawn, they will next go into Microsoft Word and write a short story, roughly three paragraphs in length. This should be about if the student and pumpkin were friends, where would they go together, whom would they want to scare, and why they would want to scare this person.
Spelling and grammar will be graded for this assignment, and make sure the students take their time and do their own work. So make sure they spell check.
When the students are done with the writing activity, they should save the writing assignment on disk and label it, “ My friend the pumpkin”.
Art Activity
Each student will create a pumpkin.
Tell the students not to take too much paint.
Take only the colors needed.
Tell students to take a thin and thick brush.
Have the students put newspaper under their work.
Tell students to be careful when using scissors.
Have the students follow the row chart to go and get materials.
(Row number one will go first and row number five last).
Pass out the materials to the students: the brushes, paints, cups, cut outs, pencils, and paper towels.
Tell the students to begin by painting the pumpkin (It does not matter if they go out of the lines, later it will be cut).
The students will then paint the stem.
Now, tell the students to paint the leaf.
The students will let their pumpkins dry for roughly fifteen minutes, this to make sure the pumpkins do not smear when drawing on the details.
Collect the materials that will not be used any more. These would be the paints, brushes, and cups. The students will go to the sinks by rows and discard the paint and put their brushes away in the right order. Once all these materials are collected, the next set of materials may be passed out. These include: black markers, markers, and scissors.
Next, have the children paint the lines on the pumpkin. (These are the detail lines).
The children will then draw the eyelids on the pumpkin.(This is done with the black marker. It does not matter what they look like. Each student’s should be different)
Put the eyeballs in the eyelids.
-Size does not matter.
Have the students draw on the nose.
- Use the marker for this.
The students will now draw on the mouth.
- This is done with the black marker.
- These will be various sizes and shapes.
The students will write their first name on the left side.
- Done in black marker.
The students will finally write their last names on the right side.
- Done in black marker.
The final step is for the students to cut the pumpkin out.
When the students finish this, let the project dry for five minutes. While the projects are drying, I will put up my pumpkin, the focal point, on the green bulletin board. Then I will put the yellow strips of construction paper to resemble hay on the bottom of the bulletin board. The students will then come up row by row to hang their pumpkins on the bulletin board. The book that would tie in well with this lesson is The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid Of Anything by Linda Williams.
Assessment:
Ask the students to recite the name of a person on the board and see if they can pick out the person whose name is on the pumpkin. The bulletin board with the student’s names on it will be on display as soon as someone walks into the room. This is let them know who is in the room. The students will be graded on their computer drawings and on their journal writing, which is saved on their own disks.
Extension / Enrichment: Take the students on a field trip and have them pick out a small pumpkin. The students can then discuss how a pumpkin grows, where the seeds of the pumpkin are, and what a pumpkin tastes like. Science may be incorporated here by discussed other types of plants are grow on farms and why the farmers grow these. The children will each carve their own pumpkin in the shape the wish.
Useful Internet Resources:
The Pumpkin Patch
http://www.pumpkin-patch.com/
Hagg's Pumpkin Patch
http://www.haggs4fun.com/pumpkinpics.htm