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Artwork copyright . Jean Whitesavage and Nick Lyle. Photo courtesy of the artists (detail).

Artwork Lesson Plan 1 | Thinking Big, Thinking Small (Grades K-2)

"Thinking Big, Thinking Small...Playing with Size" is a lesson plan suggested for grade levels kindergarten-second grade. To access the complete lesson plan, as well as a presentation document containing images that you can project in your classroom, click on any of the images below and go to "Lesson Plans and Documents".

In this art lesson, students look at Prairie Flowers, Potato, and Wheat, 2009, giant sculptures of native wildflowers created by a team of sculptors, Jean Whitesavage and Nick Lyle. In response to the realistic subject and the gigantic scale, students invent the beginning of a story based on the art and then create their own drawing, exploring the idea of shrinking or growing the size of things.

This lesson plan demonstrates how changing the size or scale of something compared to the world around it can engage the imagination.

The complete lesson plan was developed and written by Meredith Essex, with thanks to Louis Allard (Adams Elementary, Seattle Public Schools) for development support.