ART
is a vital component of education. It allows
students to work creatively, develop fine motor
skills and expand their worldview. As important
as is it to include art into everyday education, it can be difficult to
incorporate it into a STEM/STEAM classroom.
Since it’s our mission at Art to Remember to support and promote art
education, we’re bringing you two lesson plans that your students will
love. These plans are simple, inexpensive to execute and can be
adapted to work in a variety of classrooms. You can watch the video,
check out the descriptions below or download the lesson plans
(Painting with Pendulums and Art Bot).
Painting with Pendulums
smaller or larger versions or encourage your students to brainstorm
ways to make their own.
Once the pendulums are constructed, you will need to punch a small
hole in the bottom of a paper cup and place a piece of paper under the
pendulum. Then, you will mix equal parts acrylic paint and water and
pour some of the mixture into the cup while placing your finger over the
hole. Then, pull the cup back and release it on a slight curve so that it
will travel in a circular motion. Once the cup comes to a stop, either let
the paint dry or repeat the process with a different paint color.
After drying, you can encourage your students to add elements to their
spiral artwork. In our example, we drew shapes and animals with a
marker and added additional color with watercolors.
For this science-based
lesson, you and your
students will construct simple
pendulums to demonstrate
Isaac Newton’s Laws of
Motion. While using the
pendulums to demonstrate
gravity and inertia, they will
simultaneously create spiral
artwork.
In our example, we turned
two barstools upside down,
taped a rod between them
and strung a paper cup from
the rod. Feel free to make
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