Art

About this course

Fourth grade art is built around the standard elements and then applied. Three opening units cover line and shape (contour drawing, gesture sketching, geometric versus organic shapes, composition, positive and negative space), color and value (the color wheel, primary through tertiary colors, warm and cool families, tints and shades, a value scale, complementary and analogous harmony, and what different colors suggest emotionally), and texture and form (visual texture that only looks touchable versus actual texture you can feel, cross-hatching and stippling, three-dimensional form, shading, and where the highlight and cast shadow fall). The drawing unit then applies those to observational drawing, still life, figure proportion at roughly seven and a half heads tall, facial feature placement, animals from basic shapes, one-point perspective, landscape, pen and ink with no erasing allowed, and assembling a portfolio. Painting covers watercolor basics, wet-on-wet, dry brush, tempera, paint mixing, and painting a landscape, a still life, an abstract, and something from imagination. Sculpture covers pinch pots, coil building, papier-mache, found-object work, and relief.

The last two units are what set this year apart. Art history introduces cave painting and Egypt, the Renaissance, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo (naming both the marble David and the Sistine Chapel ceiling), Claude Monet and Impressionism, the American painter Winslow Homer, and Christian art from the catacombs to stained glass. Since no pictures are built into the lessons, you and your family will be looking works up in a book or online, and it is worth previewing what comes back. The closing unit, Art and Faith, is unusual and practical: beauty in creation, Bezalel given skill by God for the tabernacle, making art as a gift for someone, art offered as worship, illustrating Bible stories, designing a church banner, and using artistic gifts to serve a congregation or community.

There are 72 lessons across eight units, about 30 minutes each, so this is a light subject rather than a daily one. A lesson runs two minutes of prayer, six minutes of introduction, fifteen minutes of making, and a six-minute review, ending with a ten-question quiz that grades itself. Be aware that the written portion here is brief, usually two or three sentences that define the technique clearly and then hand it off. Unlike some other grades, the lessons do not script a step-by-step project, so the bulk of each session is making something and you decide what that something is. The quiz covers the reading, so the explanation still needs to be read carefully. On supplies, the lessons list crayons, paper, scissors, and a glue stick, but plan across the year for watercolor and tempera paint with brushes and watercolor paper, a fine-tip black pen for the ink lesson, air-dry clay for the pots, newspaper and paste for papier-mache, a box of saved buttons and bottle caps for the found-object lesson, and cloth or poster paper for the banner.

What the course covers

• Line, contour, gesture, and geometric versus organic shape
• Composition, positive space, and negative space
• Color wheel, tertiary colors, harmony, and color mood
• Visual and actual texture, cross-hatching, and stippling
• Shading, light source, highlight, and cast shadow
• Figure and facial proportion, still life, and one-point perspective
• Watercolor, tempera, abstract painting, and pen and ink
• Pinch pots, coil building, papier-mache, and relief sculpture
• Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Monet, Winslow Homer, and Christian art
• Art as worship, gift, church banner, and service

What your student will be able to do

• Use the elements of art to describe and plan a composition
• Draw a face and figure with correct proportion
• Shade an object convincingly from a chosen light source
• Handle watercolor, tempera, and ink with the right technique for each
• Build a sculpture in clay, paper, or found materials
• Design and make a piece of art intended to serve or bless someone else

Scope and sequence

All 8 units of Art for Grade 4, in the order they are taught.

Every lesson, by title

All 72 lesson titles are listed here — nothing is withheld until you download. Open a unit to read its contents.

One whole lesson, exactly as it comes

This is a real lesson taken from the middle of the course — the teaching text, the practice, the homework, and the first three quiz questions with their answers. It is not a marketing excerpt.

What you will need

Drawn from the materials named across all 72 lessons of this course. Most families already own most of it.