 list books and page numbers where color reproductions can be found. Other useful materials for reproductions are catalogs from exhibitions, auctions, and businesses that sell art prints. These can be found at no cost at all if you look for them and ask friends and colleagues to save them for you. Often you can find old adult art books at tag sales or second hand book stores for very little money whose reproductions of art works are not out of date even though the text and condition of the book may be. These materials can be used again and again in the classroom for their color reproductions of paintings and sculpture.
Two relatively new books highly recommended for a school book budget are:
Beckett, Sister Wendy. The Story of Painting. London & New York: Dorling Kindersley in association with the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1994.
Sister Wendy is known to many for her frequent, short spots on PBS television. Her book is eloquently written and provides excellent background material for anyone teaching art. She deals chronologically with the history of painting in Western Europe and to some extent in America as well. The color reproductions are large and excellent and can be easily shared with the students in the classroom. Side bars tie the art works in with the general history of the period and country of origin.
Massey, Sue J. And Diane W. Darst. Learning to Look. A Complete Art History & Appreciation Program for Grades K-8. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1992.
This book, written expressly for children and their art teachers, is filled with questions to ask about specific paintings and includes both color reproductions and 48 slides of paintings from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, most of which are part of the Core Knowledge Curriculum.
Fourth Grade - Visual Arts - Lesson 1 - Review of Color
Review warm, cool, primary, and secondary colors.
Name the elements of art (review).
Complete an art activity combining color and design.
Chart paper, optional
White paper for painting, one per student
Tempera paints of different colors, including black and white
Shallow containers for mixing paints, several for each child
The students will have seen most of these books in earlier grades; here they can be browsed and/or easily read by 4th graders by way of reviewing concepts about color.
Carle, Eric. The Very Hungry Caterpillar. New York: Scholastic,
________The Tiny Seed. New York: Scholastic, 1970.
Ehlert, Lois. Color Zoo. New York: Harper Collins, 1989.
Emberly, Edward. Green Says Go. Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1968.
Jonas, Ann. Color Dance. New York: Greenwillow Books, 1989.
O'Neill, Mary. Hailstones and Halibut Bones. New York: Doubleday, 1961.
Westray, Kathleen. A Color Sampler. New York: Ticknor & Fields, 1993.
Yenawine, Philip. Colors. New York: Delacorte Press, 1991.
Note for the Teacher
Material about warm, cool, primary, and secondary colors has been part of the Core visual arts curriculum beginning with Kindergarten, and the study of color was expanded in First through Third Grades. Similarly, the elements of art have been identified in lessons from First through Third Grades. Hopefully, even fourth graders who have not previously followed the Core Knowledge curriculum, will have been introduced to some of this material through other curricula. If not, you may have to supplement the September lessons, filling in with additional information and examples to illustrate some of the concepts. Since this first lesson is primarily about color, there are many simple books suitable for students to browse through themselves, with texts simple enough that they can read on their own.
Tell the class a little about the kinds of art they will be looking at in the coming months. Say: Once we have reviewed the elements of art in the first few lessons, you will find the art lessons supplement the things you are learning in History and Geography this year. That means that we will look at some American art from the Colonial period, several kinds of art from the Middle Ages in Western Europe, Islamic 