Word Wall Teaching Tool

My Art Word Wall is one of my favorite teaching tools.  I use it to display the key words and or Artist's name relating to my art lessons.  I have one for each grade, Kindergarten through sixth grade.  When a grade level is finished with a lesson I hang the new lesson's vocabulary words.  When I first hung my word wall I just put the words but the photos with them makes them more useful and appealing especially for younger grades. This is an old photo so there are some without pictures. 
















When I am reviewing a lesson with classes students often look to the word wall to see if they can find the answers to the questions that I ask.  The pictures and words help reinforce some the elements of the lesson that I want the students to remember. 

Gustav Klimt Inspired Trees by second grade

My second grade classes enjoyed making their own Tree of Life.  To get started we looked at Gustav Klimt's Tree of Life then discussed what patterns and shapes that the students could see in Klimt's art. We first made a small tree with curling branches on an ATC (artist trading card, 2 1/2 x 3 1/2 inch miniture artwork)  I showed them how to start out with the trunk and work up adding branches on either side with several curled branches on the main branch.  They were then ready for thier large artwork.  They choose from a variety of bright papers.  After they drew their tree to their satasfaction they outlined it in crayola construction paper crayons.  They filled the inside of their tree with shapes and patterns.  Some shapes they borrowed from Klimt and some they created on their own.  After the tree was filled with shape and color they were ready to outline their tree in glitter.  Students were excited to take this finished project home.  Although Klimt doesn't use glitter in his tree I'm sure he would aprove.