great lesson art making Archives

5 Ways to Integrate Art Activities into Montessori Great Lessons

By Spramani Elaun

One of the most common questions Montessori teachers come to me with is, “How do I integrate art with my lessons?” When you combine the concepts of art and the Great Lessons, you can seamlessly support your students learning without any disconnection. And by incorporating art with what students are already learning you’re helping to instill the concepts of those subjects by putting them into a new perspective. You’re also giving their art context by showing its relationship to other parts of their world, which can lead to an increase in their art literacy. In this blog I want to share 5 simple ways you can start to integrate Montessori art activities.

Art Helps Metacognitive Reinforcement

The Great Lessons in themselves are bold, exciting; they’re a way to awaken a child’s curiosity, imagination, and even creativity. There are really simple projects you can set up that help bring art into your everyday lessons, or specifically, your Great Lessons.

Students are used to learning new ideas through text and images, imagine how much more they’ll be able to understand and retain information when you tie in a multi-sensorial process like creating art. It will help your students learn on a deeper level. Having children create with a multitude of senses helps develop metacognitive reinforcement! I dive deeper into this in my books and online course, but here’s the gist:

Art Activities Support Learning

When art lessons are integrated into the Great Lessons, you create new pathways to reach different learners in different ways, which maximizes your students’ learning on these topics. They learn to express diverse ideas through methods that can’t be done in most other academic subjects. Something I’ve discovered over the years of working directly with students is that they each have a unique way of demonstrating their true understanding. Art gives them a platform where there’s no wrong or right way to express themselves and their understanding. This is particularly why science today is backing STEAM education models!

You probably already have your calendar planned out for the year, so here are 5 simple ways to add in art and relate it to the Great Lessons.

First Great Lesson: Coming of the Universe and the Earth

With the first Great Lesson, you’re teaching students about astronomy, meteorology, chemistry, physics, geology, and geography. One of my favorite projects to teach is watercolor or acrylic painting of galaxies. Students can create stunning images of galaxies and stars they see in their lessons, or let their imaginations loose and paint their own interpretations. In my sample here we created cosmic rocks by acrylic painting them with the big bang, milky way, starts and so much more.

5 Ways to Integrate Art and the Great Lessons

Second Great Lesson: Coming of Life

The second Great Lesson covers topics such as biology, botany, habitats, ancient life, and animals. I enjoy integrating nature into my projects whenever possible, making botanical art an exciting subject to teach! Be sure to explore my previous blogs where I detail various ways to incorporate fall leaves into projects. In the examples provided, we conducted a drawing lesson using oil pastels to depict rainforest animals. Another photo sample showcases drawings of natural elements like leaves, seashells, feathers, and other objects found in nature, combining pencil sketches with watercolor paint.

Third Great Lesson: Coming of Human Beings

History, culture, social studies, and invention are all parts of the third Great Lesson. Earlier this year, I partnered with a fellow Montessori teacher (for grades 4-6), and we integrated art into a lesson on ancient civilizations. Children learned basic ideas about settlements and how government is formed. I brought in several art lessons moving children through the artistic process of brainstorming, sketching, and building a 3D model of a settlement—either ancient, modern, or imaginary. If you want to learn more about how to do this, make sure you register for my Art Teaching Blueprint online course, I provide a step-by-step process for this lesson and a ton of others.

Fourth Great Lesson: Communication and Writing

The fourth Great Lesson covers different forms of communication including reading, writing, language, and structure. As students learn about pictographs and hieroglyphics, they can draw them out or create their own and then explain in writing what they mean.

Fifth Great Lesson: Numbers

In the final Great Lesson, students learn about numbers, mathematics, geometry, and the applications of these topics. Using clay to mold and create shapes can illustrate geometrical concepts to students, such as similarities and angles.

This is just the tip of the iceberg! I get so excited about integrating visual art and the Great Lessons and have so many more easy and practical ways to do so in your classroom. There are two ways to get more info and ideas on this: 1) sign up for my newsletter to keep up with my blog, and 2) get dozens of ideas, all in one place, by registering for my course, Art Teaching Blueprint. I can’t wait to inspire more of your Montessori lessons!

3 to 6 Art – Early Childhood Montessori Teaching Resources

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5 NEW Ways to Tackle Montessori Art Projects This School Year

By Spramani Elaun

The funny thing about art is that it should be creative—spontaneous even—but as Montessori teachers we can sometimes get stuck in a rut and begin to teach the same art lessons over and over again. I don’t want that to happen to you! Not this school year at least!

It’s back-to-school season, and I know you are gearing up for another awesome year, so I wanted to give you a little push and a little inspiration on tackling art this year. There are so many ways to teach art to your students, and I’d love to help find your creativity in any way I can (so feel free to reach out if every you feel like you’re in a slump!).

I know how busy you are with planning your school year and putting the finishing touches on your classroom, so for now, here are five ideas for new ways to bring art into your classroom.

1. New medium

Is there a medium that you didn’t get the chance to use last year, but you’ve really been wanting to give it a go? Now’s your chance! Cross off a bucket-list lesson and spring for a new medium. Or pop into your local art store and browse the aisles until something strikes your fancy. The possibilities are endless! Think about the brilliant colors of oil pastels, modeling clay, seeds, beans, paint swatches (from the local hardware store), and even “found” items like recycled cardboard, magazines, or plastics.

2. New Art Projects

More than likely, you’re going to start the year by teaching the Great Lessons. And, chances are, you’re going to have a stack of story books that you’ll use and share with your students. So why not look to those books for inspiration? You can highlight the artist’s illustrations or just pull ideas or scenes from the book and make that into an art project. Try extending this idea and move past the story books and into different subjects. For example, if you’re studying the cosmos, create an art project based on that topic.

Over the summer I shared the the book “Hole in the Bottom of the Sea” with kids in my art camp. It shows sealife like jellyfish, crabs, sharks, and seaweed, in a really fun, colorful way. Once we were done reading the book, we made fun painted crafts and created sharks out of up-cycled paper rolls. We also did fish sponge stamps, paper plate jellyfish, crab stamps, and fish-shaped water paintings complete with googly eyes. This one book provided so much inspiration, and it was easy for the kids to make connections to what they had learned about the ocean.

If you’re ever stuck for ideas, Pinterest can be a huge life saver. Just log on, type in the theme or topic you have in mind, add “art project” or “craft” to your search, and you’ll instantly have hundreds of options to choose from! Likewise, your peers and fellow teachers can be a great resource in helping you come up with new art projects this school year. (Follow my Pinterest Boards here)

3. Ask Parents to Help Out

There are two ways parents can really help with art in your classroom, the first is by providing a few of the supplies. At the beginning of the school year, send out a supply list request and ask parents to contribute or donate what they can. You can create a specific wish list or let parents give the supplies they find the most interesting. Most parents understand that art supplies can be expensive and will be willing to help out.

The other way parents can inspire your art lessons is by through volunteering and teaching an art project themselves. So many teachers have shared with me that they’ve invited parents to teach an art project based on their heritage or culture, and it’s always a big hit with students. For instance, I saw one parent come into a classroom and show the kids how to create tinfoil art; the parent presented the entire lesson and the teacher and aides helped the students put it into action.

4. Start Off with an Inspiration Gallery

I’d encourage you to find a spot in your classroom to specifically highlight visual art. You can post students’ artwork or pull together items and pieces that inspire you. A focal point like this not only supports art literacy, but having a place where students can see other artwork will actually inspire them to come up with some really amazing ideas of their own. It might even lead to some inspiration for a few projects for you!

5. Let the Art Shelf Do Its Job

If you haven’t already set up an art shelf in your classroom, this year is the year to do it! I just posted a blog on art shelf essentials. When your art shelf is stocked and all the art supplies are visible and within reach, students can have at it whenever inspiration strikes.

There you have it! I just wanted to give you a few quick tips to help you approach art with a fresh perspective this year. If you’re still stumped for ideas, check out my book “Introducing Visual Arts to the Montessori Classroom;” in it, I list out tons of ideas (organized by theme and subject), so that can serve as inspiration when you need it as well. And if you haven’t already, sign up for my newsletter—every month I’ll be sharing an awesome, really-detailed art lesson specific to the Montessori classroom.

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