3rd Grade Cities - Space

I love architecture, so I would have to say that space is my absolute favorite concept to teach in the art room.  For 3rd grade we created cities that have space, albeit not much in between them, but they have some space separating them.  I started out the lesson reading the book Iggy Peck, Architect.  Sweet little book about a 2nd grader that builds all sorts of things and saves his class using his mad designing an building skills.

We then talk about what space is.  I try to keep it simple.  I explain that there is above us, below, on either side--basically all around us.  Then I say, but there is also space within us--like the art room.  We use the space in the art room, but there is space all around the art room as well.  I also touch on the career of an architect and what they do.

So step one on the project, I gave each student 3 sheets of paper, 12x3, 12x5.5 and 12x8.  Then I explain the types of buildings that need to be drawn on each size.  The small needs to have houses, the medium should have shops and small buildings and the large, skyscrapers.  They got pretty creative and added landmarks they have visited and landmarks from our town.  They drew with pencils and then outlines with thin Sharpies.  Afterwards, they watercolored.  Finally, they cut out the sky part to give a skyline to each size of buildings.  Lastly, they chose the background sky color (I gave them orange, black and blue to choose from) and they glued each down with little foam squares.  I just cut up a large foam piece into 1/2 x 1/2 inch squares.  After gluing everything on, there is space between the background and the skyscrapers, the boutiques and small buildings and the houses.

They did a fantastic job.