An Art Lesson Plan for First Through Third Grade: To Illustrate a Point

Outcomes: To learn about book illustrations, to learn how to tell a story with pictures and to create a two dimensional work using color pencils.

Materials: Five half sheets of standard white paper per student, one half sheet of card stock per student for cover of book, two pieces of lined notebook paper per student, pencils, colored pencils, hole punch and yarn for putting the books together, many popular picture books to show illustration.

Art History: Look at and read “Where the Wild Things Are” by Maurice Sendak, “The Mixed up Chameleon” by Eric Carle, and “The Mitten” by Jan Brett.  (Just suggestions of excellent writer/illustrators.)

Steps:

1. Talk about what an illustrator and author does, and then read one of the books above.
2. Talk about how the illustrations in the book helped tell the story.  What illustrations do you remember?  How did that one help move the story along for you?
3. Talk about how the story had a beginning, middle and end.  What were they?
4. Using a white board or chalk board write three simple sentences that tell a story with a beginning, middle and end.  Example:  Suzy loved flowers.  She planted a flower garden.  Her garden grew and she was happy. 
5. Using simple shapes, illustrate the story next to the sentences.  Ask for ideas from the children.
6. Name the story, getting ideas from the children.
7. Pass out the pencils and notebook paper.  Have each child write three simple sentences, creating a story with a beginning, middle and end.  Encourage them to be creative, and they may have more than three sentences if they wish.  Help as needed, but the words do not have to be spelled correctly. 
8. When they get done with their sentences, have the children do an ‘idea’ sketch, like the one on the board next to each sentence.
9. After the ‘ideas’ are done, have each child write a title to their story.
10. When they have an idea of what they want to draw, have each child draw that picture on a half sheet of paper, and then color it with the colored pencils. Encourage them to use the entire space. The words will be typed up and put on the opposite page from the illustration. 
11. When pictures are complete, pass out the card stock half sheets and have the children create a cover for their book that includes the title, clearly written in black colored pencil or with large ‘bubble’ letters, and the name of the author and illustrator.  Put those on the board, so that they can copy the big words.  Example:  Illustrated by: Suzy Smith   Author:  Suzy Smith
12. When books are completed, the teacher will punch two to three holes in each page in the same place and then use the yarn to tie them together.  The words for each story can be typed quickly up, printed and then glued onto the opposite page from the illustration.  Sounds like a lot of work, but it’s really not, and well worth the results.
13. Display the books on a bookshelf, encouraging the children to explore one another’s work during free reading time, and make it available for parents to look through during pick up times. 

Other lesson plans by me:

/A-Lesson-Plan-for-Kindergarten-Art-Clay-Tiles

Art-Project-for-Third-to-Fourth-Grade–Impressionist-Landscapes

A-Lesson-Plan-for-Kindergarten-Art-Paper-Houses