Skip To Main Content

Logo Image

Logo Title

Third Grade Art

Course Description

In each unit in third grade, students have the opportunity to create, present, respond to, and connect with a variety of artworks. They plan and create artworks, develop skills using art materials, and learn to use artistic vocabulary to describe and respond to art. Students will work with clay, drawing, painting, printmaking, and sculpture.

Grade Level(s): Third Grade

Related Priority Standards (State &/or National):  Missouri Fine Arts Standards

Essential Questions

  • How do artists experiment and improve their skills without wasting too many materials?
  • How do artists and curators make decisions about the best ways to use technology to make their artworks more accessible?
  • How do artists and curators select which works and which images of their works to display to the public?
  • How do artists know when a particular effect is working in their artwork?
  • How do artists determine when to elaborate and when to reduce or remove details in their artwork?
  • How can we use repetition and variation to create interesting images?
  • What can you infer about the artist’s tools and materials by studying this work?
  • How can we design a container that is both functional and decorative?
  • How can we create and combine shapes?

Enduring Understandings/Big Ideas

  • Artists practice and improve their skills by planning and judging whether a technique has the intended effect.    
  • Artists and curators consider how to use technology to engage audiences in their work.
  • Artists and curators choose carefully among an artist's work to create a collection that creates an intended effect.
  • Artists experiment, reflect, and seek feedback to determine whether a particular approach is effective.    
  • Artists refine their work by adding details to elaborate and extend visual details and patterns.
  • Artists observe their surroundings to add information to their artwork.
  • Artists learn how to care for and maintain their tools and materials so that they have more choices and more control over their resources.
  • People can make inferences about the tools and materials artists use by studying artists' work.
  • People respond to the images and ideas they notice in an artist's work.
  • The materials and functions of containers reflect the choices and values of communities.
  • Containers communicate messages about how the community values the content.
  • Sculpture takes up and marks out space.
  • Sculpture demonstrates all the elements of art and principles of design that two-dimensional artwork includes. 
  • Artists and curators make decisions about the spacing and presentation of artworks in an exhibit that influences how people react to them.

Course-Level Scope & Sequence (Units &/or Skills)

Unit 1 - Clay Slab

  • Students will investigate the application of clay tools and materials. 
  • Students will investigate multiple options to add texture and color to a clay slab. 
  • Students practice clay connection techniques. 
  • Students will create a collection of clay work by photographing, editing, and publishing images of their work.

Unit 2 - Scapes: Foreground, Middle Ground, Background, and Horizontal Line

  • Students will create a landscape, cityscape, moonscape or other wide depiction of an area seen from a distance that demonstrates the aspects of depth. 
  • Students will describe the features of a variety of other scapes.
  • Students will consider how changing technology has influenced people's opportunity to access a variety of land and cityscapes.

Unit 3 - Printmaking: Additive

  • Students will learn about adding texture to a printing surface, plane, or plate. 
  • Students will create a reflection of other materials in prints.

Unit 4 - Container: Functional Art

  • Students will interpret how the materials and functions of containers reflect the choices and values of communities. 
  • Students will interpret how containers communicate messages about how the community values the content. 
  • Students will use a variety of materials to create containers that communicate personal or communal values.

Unit 5 - 2D Paper into 3D Form

  • Students will cut, fold, and manipulate a variety of 2d materials into three-dimensional artwork that represents ideas and/or places from everyday life.
  • Students will observe forms in their environment and reflect on how they influence how people respond to space. 
  • Students will write artists' statements about their  planning, preparation, and presentation.

Course Resources & Materials: Art of Education, Flex Curriculum & Pro Learning

Date Last Revised/Approved: 2022