Parent and Teacher Resources

Handprints of My Present and Future Self

This lesson is an ideal way to incorporate art making and slow looking into the process of students getting to know one another at the beginning of the year. It is an activity I’ve seen used in therapeutic settings as well because it encourages self-reflection and a positive, imagined future self. It could also be modified to connect to a language arts lesson that seeks to build comprehension of symbols and symbolism or even to curriculum relating to archaeology and/or pre-literary human history.

Land Art Inspired Nature Collages and Photographs

This summer camp season, our theme was Art Through the Decades. During our 1970s inspired camp, we learned about the land art movement and looked at iconic works by Robert Smithson, Nancy Holt, and the more recent (and smaller scale) works of Andy Goldsworthy. We took these artists' lead, and created ephemeral, nature-based works of our own. Instead of glueing anything down, the students documented their work with photographs and took the printed images home as artifacts of their experience. It was one of the most pleasurable lessons to teach (no mess!) and the kids relished the connection to nature and the freedom of process over product. This project could be modified for any age group, pre-K through 12th grade.

Gelli Plate Printing + Collage Inspired by Monet's House and Garden in Giverny, France

This spring in Art Academy for the 6-10 year olds, we explored artwork and artists that take their inspiration from botany and horticulture. Our students had the opportunity to learn directly from Payne County Master Gardener volunteers and participate in hands-on horticulture activities with fun, follow-up art projects, one of which was this gorgeous gelli plate printed collage inspired by one of the most famous artist-gardeners of all time, Claude Monet. This lesson could be adapted for any age group, K-12.

Parent and Teacher Resources

Welcome to the Prairie Arts Center Parent and Teacher Resources page. Once a month we will feature a successful lesson plan from past Art Academy classes, summer camps, or other youth and/or outreach programming here at Prairie. Lessons will include enough detail, context, and resources to execute at home or in the classroom. It is our hope that this will be a valuable, shared resource among educators and parents in our community and beyond. We would be happy to receive feedback, social media tags, and suggestions!

Daniel Spoerri Inspired Collaborative Pizza Party

In the first session of Art Academy for 6-10 year olds this spring, we looked at artists and artwork inspired by food and our rituals and habits around eating. For this project, we took our inspiration from contemporary Swiss artist, Daniel Spoerri, who is best known for his so-called "snare pictures," which are large scale assemblages of what is left on a table after a meal has been eaten by a group of people. These works are made up of "used" cutlery, dinnerware, and napkins. They might also include spilled drinks, leftover bites, change, ashtrays, flower arrangements, wine corks and bottles, or paper ephemera left behind by one of the diners. His works are hung up on the wall, taking the table and its contents to the vertical. Viewed like this, they become intriguing tableaus with clues about what has happened in the moments before we, the viewers, arrived. Our students had fun following the clues and making educated guesses about who was there, what was eaten, and where the meal was enjoyed. In viewing Spoerri's work, they readily made connections to their own experiences dining with family and friends and to the idea that these times are poignant and celebratory. It was easy after this conversation to leap into creating our own tableau of a pizza party interrupted. This lesson could be adapted for students K-12.

Joseph Foucart Inspired Mismatch Castles

These imaginative ink and watercolor castles are inspired by prominent turn-of-the-century Oklahoma architect, Joseph Pierre Foucart. Foucart was the first architect to establish a practice in the Oklahoma territory and many of his unique and historical buildings remain in use today. They are especially prominent in Guthrie, OK, where Foucart set up his practice in 1889. Foucart brought the influence of European Gothic with him to Oklahoma and helped develop a new style called Prairie Gothic. Foucart was known to break some of the rules of his day, irreverently mixing and matching window, door, and column styles on the same building. Without a doubt, Joseph Foucart changed the landscape of Oklahoma with his love for the fantastical and whimsical. The following lesson plan was used in a mixed-age setting with students ages 6-12. It could be adapted for students up through high school.

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