House for Hermit Crab

Elements of Art 

Color: an element of visual art; the visible range of reflected light. Color has three properties: hue, value, and intensity.
Line:  a long narrow mark or stroke made on or in a surface; a thin mark made by a pencil, pen, or brush. The repetition of lines (and/or shapes) is used to create texture, pattern, and gradations of value.
Shape: an element of visual arts; a two-dimensional (flat) area enclosed by a line.
Texture: an element of visual arts; the portrayal of the quality of a surface by using drawing techniques to create texture and patterns, such as stippling, hatching, cross hatching, scribbling, broken lines, and repeating lines and shapes; actual texture is how something feels when touched; visual texture (also called simulated texture) is how something appears to feel.

Additional Vocabulary

Collage: a way of making a work of art by gluing different objects, bits of paper, pictures, fabric, materials, and textures to a surface. 
Background: the area of an artwork that appears farthest away on a picture plane, usually nearest the horizon.
Streaking: creating long dashed lines.
Splatter: a dotted or spotted random pattern created by flicking paint from a toothbrush or tapping paint brushes.
Dab: lightly touching the paper with the paint brush quickly to create a random blotched appearance. 
Spiral line: a line that gradually winds around and recedes from a central spot.

Materials & Supplies 

Context (History and/or Artists)

After reading A House For Hermit Crabby Eric Carle, create a new home for the hermit crab in the style of Eric Carle on paper.

Advanced Preparation

• Prepare a Hermit Crab Template and a Crab Friends Template from cardstock for each student. Be sure to note which side is the top
                 
• Tell students (and parents) to wear old clothes on the first day as it can get messy.
• Cover the desks on the day you create the painted papers.

Tips & Tricks

• Don’t put names on the papers that the students paint but explain that they will all be sharing each other's artwork for the second part of this lesson.
• Collect all the painted papers then pass them out randomly when they are dry.
• Create additional papers to supplement the students’ supply.

Discussion Points 

Read the story A House for Hermit Crab written and illustrated by Eric Carle. Talk to the students about how Eric Carle makes his pictures. Go back through the book looking at each page and talk about the pictures. What simple shapes (circle, square, rectangle, triangle) do they see in the starfish, sea urchin, coral, etc.? Identify the colors of the parts on the page. What color paper did Eric Carle use to make the paper to create the ocean floor? What colors did he splatter on it to make it look sandy? How did he tell the story using pictures? Do the pictures match the story? 

Reflection Point (Assessment of Learning Objectives)

Did the students use three painting techniques to create the papers? 
Display the finished artwork. Compare and contrast how students used lines, shapes, and color in their design.
Can students tell a story about their artwork?

Instructions for Lesson

Visit 1: Painting Papers
There are many ways Eric Carle puts paint on paper: wet on wet, dry brush, stamp printing, spatter painting, textures brayers and crayon resist rubbings. This lesson will focus on 3 methods: splatter, dabbing and streaking. Take the students through each painting process all together, demonstrating one technique at a time. 

Streaking

1. Pass out the colors the class decided were created by streaking and walk the students through the technique. 
2. Select the colors the class decided were used in the book and use watercolor paints to paint the paper using long strokes. Use your whole arm in motion to get a striped effect.
3. Collect the papers and set aside to dry.

Red paper streaked with dark colors (greens and blues)
Green paper streaked with greens.

Splattering

1. Pass out the papers, just like the streaking exercise.
2. Using the colors the class decided on, load the paintbrush with watercolor paint over the paper and gently tap the handle of the paintbrush on a pencil. The paint will splatter onto the paper making small dots. 

Yellow paper splattered with greens and brown
Green paper splattered with greens and blues
Blue paper splattered with white and yellow
Purple paper splattered with black and blue

Dabbing

1. Pass out the papers same as above. Using watercolor paints load the brush with color and make dots with the brush on the paper using an up and down motion.

Light grey or white paper dabbed with yellow, red and purple
Purple paper dabbed with black and blue

Visit 2: Assembling the Collage

1. Pass out white background, yellow and green seaweed paper.
2. Show the students how to make a setting for their underwater scene on the paper. Tear a piece of yellow paper for the sea floor, line up the corners on the bottom of the page and glue it down.
   
3. Pass put the templates and the paper for the Hermit Crab or personalized sea creature (red and light grey or white). 
4. Have the students trace and/or cut out shapes. Students may create their own sea creatures instead if they choose. Encourage them to have a single larger creature. They can add other smaller creatures with the scraps after the large one is in place.
5. Have students cut shapes for the crab's eyes and place on the paper
6. Place the shapes on the white background paper, but do not glue yet.
   
7. Cut or tear the pieces of green paper to create seaweed to frame the hermit crab/sea creature in the composition. Tell the students not to put their creature in the middle of the paper, but off to the left or right side, framed on the opposite side with seaweed. 
8. Glue the creature and seaweed down.
9. Pass out the rest of the papers dividing it between students and/or table groups.
10. Review the shapes of the other animals that the hermit crab collects in the book. You can hand out books about sea creatures (or more templates) to the students to get more ideas.
11. Have them cut out shapes and pieces of new friends and decorations to glue to the paper around their creature to create a new home for them.
    

1. Use crayon or oil pastel to add details like - draw squiggly marks across the picture to show it is underwater. Draw the swirl in the hermit crab’s shell.

References and Attributions

Carle, Eric. A House For Hermit Crab. Picture Book Studio, 1991. Print.Lesson by Donna Gelinas, Collage Eric Carle: A House for Hermit Crab. Lesson written by Rebecca Schwenk.

Notes for Educators 

21st Century Thinking Skills
Visualizing, inferring, making connections, sequencing and determining main idea.

WA State Learning Standards
(VA:Cr1.1.K) a. Engage in exploration and imaginative play with materials.
(VA:Cr1.2.K) a. Engage collaboratively in creative art-making in response to an artistic problem. 
(VA:Cr2.1.K) a. Through experimentation, build skills in various media and approaches to art-making.
(VA:Cr2.2.K) a. Identify safe and non-toxic art materials, tools, and equipment. 
(VA:Cr2.3.K) a. Create art that represents natural and constructed environments
(VA:Re7.1.K) a. Identify uses of art within one’s personal environment. 
(VA:Re7.2.K) a. Describe what an image represents
(VA:Re8.1.K) a. Interpret art by identifying subject matter and describing relevant details.
(VA:Cn11.1.K) a. Identify a purpose of an artwork.

Arts Integration Opportunities
Writing: have students create a title and story to go with their artwork.

Please note:  These lesson plans are intended for non-profit use only. Use of these plans for commercial purposes should give attribution to the Issaquah Schools Foundation and be accompanied by a nominal donation at www.isfdn.org/donate. Thank you.

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