Early Childhood

The Essential Question
How can students visually connect emotions to colors?

Objective
Students will create a painting that portrays four emotions and their corresponding words.

Materials
12 x 18" (30 x 46 cm) mixed-media paper, tempera cake paint, brushes, water cups, oil pastels, pencils

Procedures
1. Discuss the connection between emotions and colors. How can colors be used to express different emotions? Share a variety of artworks that use color to portray emotions.
2. Students use visual aids to practice drawing faces and write the corresponding words for the emotions depicted (e.g., happy, sad, mad). Then they connect a different color to each emotion.
3. Students fold their final 12 x 18" paper into fourths and start to draw with pencil. Each section of the paper should include one face expressing a different emotion, along with the word for that emotion. (Make sure to check student spelling!)
4. Students trace their pencil drawings with oil pastels and then paint over each section with the same color as the oil pastel.

Assessment
Did students follow all directions? Are you able see the desired design? Did students use the materials correctly and safely?

Colleen Lam is a visual arts teacher at Edgewater Elementary School in Edgewater, Colorado.