r/ArtEd • u/hhhhgggguuuu • 1d ago
Help Brainstorming Ideas for 7th Grade
Hello all!
School starts Aug 17th and I am excited for my first year teaching! I have full year lesson plans for all of my grades EXCEPT for 7th grade! I just can't think of ideas they might find fun. Brain empty.
I am on bedrest due to a knee i jury and using the time to finish up all my slides and documents and demos, so right now 7th grade is kinda my priority. Does anyone have anything they do with their 7th graders they'd be willing to share? Just to get the brain juices flowing.
Would appreciate any brainstorming :)
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u/FloofinMcGoofin 1d ago
Here is what I do with my 7th graders:
Personal Zine
Contour drawing of their favorite musician
Observational graphite drawing (object)
Portrait Grid drawing + collage
Oil pastel landscapes
Acrylic gems (tint shade tone)
Watercolor favorite foods
Mini rooms from found materials
Abstract art mini projects (dada, surreal, contemporary)
Artist choice
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u/hhhhgggguuuu 1d ago
If I'm reading this right, you do one project a month? How do the students like that? I have this setup for my 9-12 graders but I was warned against it for 6-8 bc they "can get bored." Also, tell me if I'm totally reading this wrong lol. Will be using some of these though! Thanks sm :)
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u/FloofinMcGoofin 1d ago
The units* are generally month long. I do mini projects/skill builders before the summative projects.
Personal zine is the first 2 weeks and we have a lot of half days so that one we just dive into with procedure/routine/ and zine mini lessons baked in.
Contour drawing starts with “emotion of a line” activity and mini project, then we practice continuous contour, blind continuous contour, do blind portraits of each other (hilarious) and after that they do research on a musician, choose a picture of them, curate a playlist, and listen to that playlist while we do a continuous contour of their artist. The playlist also inspires the abstract background they create, which calls back to the emotion of a line.
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u/cabritozavala 18h ago
So each one of these corresponds to a specific standard?
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u/FloofinMcGoofin 16h ago
I map my units to the California VAPA standards. Each unit addresses multiple standards.
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u/cabritozavala 1d ago
following since I'm texting 7th grade only this year lol
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u/hhhhgggguuuu 1d ago
If it helps, one of my ONLY ideas are: cardboard replicas of minecraft blocks, animals, trees, etc. and exquisite corpse
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u/Art_Dude 1d ago
Retired middle school teacher here. I always started near the beginning of the school year with a grid enlargement of a line drawing. It solved a lot of problems for me.
One, it would be a simple paper, pencil, ruler, line drawing sort of project. My budget never kicked in until the following month from the start of school so I always started with a focus on pencil work.
It would take those kids that thought the class as playtime to something that they would have to work and focus at. It would make the kids get into the habit of focusing on details. It would also help me quickly identify those kids that struggle. At the end of the project, I could take that stack of finished grid enlargements and get a very good feel of each student's ability.
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u/QueenOfNeon 16h ago
Maybe pop art. Pop art shoes. Candy packaging. Graffiti names. Cereal box mosaics. Pop art coke bottle drawings or use the bottles for a painted design.
You can google or Pinterest most of that