2nd Grade -- Jasper John meets Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Back, way back in the year right around Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. day I had 2nd graders combine the positive ideas of Dr. King with the amazing paintings of the Jasper Johns.

We started of by watching part of Dr. King's "I Have a Dream" speech.


Next, we brainstormed words that were positive.

Students then picked a word and wrote it in thick bubble letters on a piece of paper.  The thicker the bubble letters the better, if the letters are too skinny it will be hard to read.

The next class we looked at paintings by Jasper John and I asked them, "How can we see his numbers even though his paintings are messy and he doesn't outline?"  It took kids a while to figure out how to explain what they were seeing.  Once students voiced the idea that he used different colors on the edges - so the inside edge might be yellow but the outside is blue.

Jasper Johns

I passed out primary colors with white and showed students how to freely paint by double or triple dipping their paint brush.  I tried to stress that they needed to make the background different than their letter so we could read them.

Honestly, this lesson didn't turn out exactly how I had planned - but students LOVED it.  They really got into making different colors and painting making it hard to read many of their words.  Even though the end product wasn't exactly what I had envisioned, the project taught more than I expected.