This Edvard Munch The Scream Art Project for kids is part of my first grade curriculum. This project is unique in that it will guide kids through the idea that they can use their art to express feelings.
Famous Artist Series from Kids Art Projects 101
This approach is awesome because it layers art history connections with guided instruction about the elements of art and principles of design. The scripted PowerPoint format can be easily utilized in a variety of settings. In this video I share specific tips and considerations to help you implement the unit with ease.
Watch the video, or read the transcript below if you prefer.
~VIDEO TRANSCRIPT~
Hi Everyone,
I am so excited to have just finished the third installment of our famous artist series. This one is all about Edvard Munch. He is most famous for his painting The Scream, which I assume you have seen at least or are vaguely familiar with.
This is a fantastic project for kids ages four, five, to maybe six, seven, eight even. It’s the kind of project that will guide kids through the idea that they can use their art to express feelings. So, the purpose of this video is to walk you through how the unit is set up and to familiarize you with all the resources and all of the details involved before you get started.
The whole project is broken into three sessions. It is designed for three 40 to 45-minute sessions. You can customize it to meet your needs, but everything I’m going to explain to you today is based on that assumption. You’re going to be breaking it into three sessions.
EDVARD MUNCH ART PROJECT SESSION 1
Munch Digital Storybook
In the first session, you’re going to be sharing a digital storybook so you’ll need access to some kind of computer, laptop, or Smart Board, something that you can show kids the digital storybook on. The digital storybook will show kids, and you’re going to talk them through, what emotion Edvard Munch might have been trying to express with that painting.
They’re going to look at a couple of other examples of works that he’s made that also express feelings. He has several paintings that express really intense feelings. So, we’re going to look at those and then you’re going to transition into a little activity that involves some movements of the face.
You’re going to prompt kids to try to use their own faces to express some feelings. So, you’ll see some slides in this slideshow that say “Make a happy face”’ or “Make a sad face”, or “Make a scared face.” This is a chance for them to giggle and practice using their faces to express some feelings.
Then, that first session will wrap up with a handout where kids will have an opportunity to actually try to draw some facial expressions. So you’re showing them how Edvard Munch does it with faces, and then they’re doing it with their faces. Then they’re trying to draw some faces.
Now, it’s not critical that they display any level of expertise in drawing faces. The samples in this handout are very simple and there are samples included at the top that they can copy directly if they want. But there are several empty faces down here where they can fill in some details to show expressions of their own.
Now if printing is an issue you can always just use a blank piece of paper instead of printing these out. It prompts the kids to draw 10 circles on the page and show a different facial expression in each circle.
They can use pencils to do this, markers, crayons, whatever you have around. If time permits you could also encourage them to think about adding color once they’ve got the faces done.
Now the color that they’re going to be trying to add here also would feed into that idea of showing feelings. You’re not talking about natural skin tone. You’re talking about expressive feelings for those faces.
So, this one in particular is angry and it is colored red to accentuate that angry feeling. Here we have a sad face and he’s all blue. There’s no right or wrong answer. It’s just an opportunity. You are teasing what’s coming up in the second session where we link color to feeling.
This is a chance to have them instinctively start connecting colors to feelings in their own way. At the end of that first session, I strongly encourage you to share their favorite one with a classmate, just so they have a sense someone saw what I did and that’s it for Session One!
EDVARD MUNCH ART PROJECT SESSION 2
My Many Colored Days
For Session Two, we’re going to try to drift away from facial expressions and move on to color. We’re going to start that session off with a book. This is Dr. Seuss’s My Many Colored Days.
This book is fantastic for this lesson because it directly links color to feelings. It is also short. You’ve got a lot to do in the second session so the length of this is an ideal quick way to get your point across.
Instead of yourself reading this, you can play a recorded read-aloud on YouTube or something. There are lots of them available for free and you can do that while you free yourself up to set up all the paint that you are going to need for the studio project.
I love this book. “Some days of course feel sort of brown. Then I feel Slow and Low Low Down!” So you just bounce around the idea that that these colors might be connected to how someone feels.
You can ask them, “Do you agree with the colors that Dr. Seuss used with these feelings or do you think red means something else?” Just open up that conversation.
We’re going to show the kids a couple more pictures by Edvard Munch in this slideshow. I specifically selected those ones, although he has many, I narrowed it down to a couple that really explicitly link color to a feeling.
There is one called Hatred. The outlines are all in red. One is called Jealousy. That guy’s face is green with envy. So you want to take a look at those and reinforce the idea that this whole project is inspired by Edvard Munch and he uses facial expression and color to show feeling.
Start The Studio Project
Now the studio project is all about getting the kids a chance to express a feeling with paint. They’re going to be scraping the paint onto a piece of chipboard. This is chipboard. If you’re not familiar, it’s a thin piece of cardboard.
You can order this online. If you don’t feel like doing that, you can always work on poster board. You can actually cut up a cardboard box. You can even use paper if you need to. The size is not important. If you want to use smaller paper, if you want to use a larger paper, that’s totally up to you. I picked a standard copy-size paper.
You’re also going to need, besides the actual board, some plastic cards. Now I tend to hoard these. These are the kind of cards that come in junk mail, old expired gift cards, or expired credit cards, that kind of thing.
Plastic cards are awesome for scraping paint. It’s basically a version of a palette knife. It’s nice because you can wipe them off and reuse them over and over again. I have gotten into saving these and I recommend you save them also because they are fantastic for art.
You’re also going to need tempera paint. You are going to set up three different plates of paint. You can put it on a paper plate or whatever you want but in the middle of each table, depending on how many kids you are working with, you want all of your kids to be within arm’s reach of the three different paint plates.
One is going to have yellow, orange, and white paint. One is going to have blue and white paint. One is going to have black and brown paint. It’s not important to mix up those colors or do anything. You are just squirting those on the plates.
Then you’re going to have kids dip into the orange, the white, and the yellow and get a little of each color on your card. Then they will scrap that paint across the top third of the picture. You can have them swerve it around up there if you want to.
Then they are going to either wipe the excess paint back onto the plate or take a paper towel and wipe it. The nice thing about working with cards versus paintbrushes is you don’t have to dip into a water cup, go back to the sink and rinse everything off every few minutes.
They are just cleaning that off, and they’re going to dip it into the white and blue paint. They are going to scrape blue and white paint onto the rest of this board. That is going to be your sky versus water.
Then, you’ll clean off the blue and white paint from the card and dip it into the brown. You’ll use the brown to fill in the large bottom corner of the page. This is going to represent the bridge in the original Scream.
Now, if they express an interest in putting something else there instead of the bridge, that’s your call. You are going to do brown and then turn the card so you get the shorter side. You’re going to dip that short side directly into black. You’re going to curve the black.
It is supposed to represent the figure of this character. It’s okay if it’s curving a different way or straight or that kind of thing but you just want a nice application of black paint there.
Now, once you have your sky, the water, the bridge, and the figure but not the face, you are essentially done with Session Two, and you’ve got to let that thing dry.
EDVARD MUNCH ART PROJECT SESSION 3
Fun Facts
Session Three is going to be starting off with a couple of really cool fun facts about The Scream. We know there is more than one painting of The Scream. There were drawings, some prints and so you want to talk to them about some fun wow facts about The Scream.
You can talk to them about The Scream being stolen from a museum and that kind of thing. Then you’re going to transition them back to the studio project. This second visit to the studio project involves oil pastels.
Finish The Studio Project
You’re going to be using oil pastels to embellish. That’s what these dark blue lines are. Oil pastels are an oily crayon. You can go back in to add a face.You can add a skin tone. Now what skin tone you use, or they use I should say, it’s totally up to them.
They want to make it expressive and red or green or if they want to go with a tan or brown, it’s totally up to them. But you want to go with this upside-down egg shape and then add the two little shapes for the hands. Then they’re going to take black and outline the mouth, the nose, and the eyes.
The features of the face are so simple which makes it really accessible for little guys. If you look at this one’s a different example and this one definitely has the blackout lines. If your face is sort of fading back into the background some outlines sometimes help. Now you can add some color to accentuate the bridge or the figure. How they add stuff on with those oil pastels is up to them.
I am recommending oil pastels because they layer really nicely onto the paint. They show up nice and bold. You can use wax crayons or markers or you can even paint some of those details on but oil pastels are nice because it’s dry right away and then you can be ready to wrap up the project and be done.
Oil pastels usually come in a box like this and they are just like crayons except they are a little oilier. When they are working with these, you do need to be mindful that they’re going to get it on their fingers, and so you want to be careful that nobody’s putting their fingers in their eyes, nose, and mouth.
They’re definitely going to need to wash their hands at the end of the session with soap. The other thing is, I like to have the kids keep the oil pastels in the box. Most oil pastels are cylindrical which means they can roll off the table.
If they roll off the table and get stepped on, that’s where it gets frustrating because that oily consistency can grind down into a rug or even into tile. If you are not going to have them stay in this box, I minimally recommend getting a tray, a cardboard box lid or something and have them contain your oil pastels so you don’t have them roll off the table.
It doesn’t take long to add these little embellishments. I’d say plan 7/8 minutes for that part. They get it done pretty quick.
You’re going to have them wash their hands and then gather back around for a simple short lesson review where you’re just showing some slides, ask them some simple questions. Review stuff to make sure they remember the artist’s name, Edvard Munch, what is he known for, expressing feelings, that sort of thing.
Art Show
You’re going to have the kids lay their projects out on a table or on the floor and have a brief art show. In the slideshow there are some prompts with different questions you can ask them. You’re welcome to modify those questions, improvise, or whatever works for you.
Basically in that art show you want to give kids an opportunity to talk about art. That is a very important component, especially for little guys. They would love to talk about what they’ve done and what they see in other kids’ work.
You want to model the idea of positive feedback and observing, reflecting on things that you see in other kids’ projects. They absorb that from you and start to play into that and do it themselves too. So it’s fun to give them a chance to learn how to do that.
Self-Assessment
The last detail is the self-assessment. It is a handout. You can print these out, one per kid. Of course, you have the option of just displaying this on the screen and talking kids through it. There are lots of creative ways to show their response to each of these things.
- I scraped paint onto my board.
- I added details with oil pastels.
- My artwork shows a feeling.
- I used my materials carefully and tried my best on this project.
There’s a little option where you can give teacher comments. That can be just a little spot where you do like “I noticed you cleaned up really nicely, I noticed you shared your supplies really nicely, I noticed you tried really hard on scraping the paint.”
Again if you want to print it out, there’s lots of creative ways to conduct an assessment. If you have any questions about that, let me know.
That represents the whole unit on Edvard Munch. I’m looking forward to getting some feedback. What are your thoughts on this one?
If you’re willing to share some pictures of your kids trying this activity, I would love to see them. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to message me directly or share with the group. We’re all in this together. Thanks, and good luck!
Early Finishers
I should also add that there are two early finisher options in this resource and these are perfectly acceptable to put out on any of the three sessions where you have kids finishing up early. One is a straight-up coloring page that I created. It is modeled after The Scream.
It just uses simple crayons, markers, and colored pencils to get familiar with the composition of that work. The other one is this. This one is a close-up of that character in The Scream but he doesn’t have a face.
This gives kids an opportunity to go in and add their own face. They can play with the emotion in this character. Is the person really happy, or surprised, or angry, or confused?
So they have a lot more control in this one, to go in and have their own face. Now they can decide which direction they want to take the feeling in this picture. Both of these are totally optional. They’re just there as extras.
If you want to print out a couple of stacks of each and have them in your room just in case you have some kids finish early, I want you to know that that’s available for you.
More About the Edvard Munch Art Unit
Engage little artists in a project-based study of Edvard Munch and The Scream in this elementary art unit of the Famous Artist series. Use the done-for-you digital storybook to present a thoughtfully curated selection of Munch’s kid-friendly masterpieces in a way that feels accessible and engaging to little ears. Explore Munch’s use of expressive feelings and emotions. Then use the digital presentation with step-by-step art project directions to guide young artists as they engage in the process of scrape painting and embellishing with oil pastels to create an emotive self-portrait project inspired by The Scream.
Inside the unit you’ll find a 23-page unit guide full of information and tips for teaching this series of elementary art lessons to students in preschool through grade 2.
✨You don’t need a lot of background knowledge of the artist or art curriculum, and you don’t have to do any extra research to teach these art lessons. I’ve included all the details here for you to open and go. Think of how much time you’ll save on planning!
The unit is broken down into three 40-minute sessions.
For each session there is a guided presentation that has already been prepared for you and can be used via Google Slides or PowerPoint. The presentation also introduces and guides you through completion of a studio project and follow-up activity.
The 101-page combined PDF and Google Slides full resource includes:
- An original digital storybook designed to expose students to famous artworks and details about Edvard Munch
- Face exercises (emphasizing physical engagement)
- A printable “Showing Feelings” activity
- A literacy connection to My Many Colored Days by Dr. Seuss
- A look at Munch’s use of color
- A digital step-by-step studio project guide with clear directions, supply lists, and work sample photos
- A printable studio project follow-up activity
- Early finisher suggestions
- A digital lesson review
- A printable self-assessment
Japanese Origami Art Project and Elementary Art Lessons