This Paul Klee Art Project is part of my first grade art curriculum. Because it it is such a process-oriented project, it is excellent for young kids who want to embrace their imagination and creativity. It’s also an engaging way to introduce young artists to the concept of line.
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 easily implement the unit.
Watch the video, or read the transcript below if you prefer.
Hi Everyone,
I am excited to share an overview of our second scripted PowerPoint. This one is all about the artist Paul Klee. If you are not familiar with him, I’m excited to bring him to the table. He’s one of my favorite artists. I am really excited because the project that this whole unit focuses on is really all about lines and since we’re targeting these lessons towards younger kids, pre-k through second grade, I think it’s just such an important time to be making sure they really understand what we mean when we say line and how we can integrate that into some creative outcomes.
PAUL KLEE ART PROJECT SESSION 1
So the first thing you want to do at the onset of this lesson is give the kids a little quick sense of the bigger picture here.
You want to explain to them that you are going to be talking about a famous artist and his name is spelled KLEE, but from everything I see online and have read, it’s pronounced CLAY. So just be aware of that as you introduce him.
It helps to give the kids a quick sense that you’re going to be using his work to do a little bit of an exploration on lines. There are a lot of resources out there that focus on his use of shape and color.
If you realize that you do like him and you really want to spend some more time on him with your students, there are a lot of other resources out there. To my knowledge, this might be the only one that focuses on his use of LINES, so I am excited about it.
Digital Storybook
What I did was put together another digital storybook. It’s not so much a digital storybook about Paul Klee himself. I find that at this age, the kids are less interested in the nitty-gritty of his life. I use these opportunities to really quickly jump into what I want them to be looking at.
So I selected for the storybook some very specific examples from his work that I think are fantastic examples of how broad his use of line is. So you’ll see examples of thick lines, thin lines, short lines, and long lines. All that kind of stuff. You’ll get a lot of ‘oohs’ and ‘ahs’. Especially with some older kids.
I found that they were not sold on the fact that this guy was actually a talented artist. His stuff is very whimsical. Little kids don’t question that at all but once you get up into the 4th and 5th grade range, they’re like, “What is this guy that you’re showing us his stuff?” His art is very whimsical, so you’ll want to reassure them that he is known for his imagination.
So anyway after taking a good look at his lines, I usually get the kids up physically out of their seats and we do some line exercises. You’ll see in the slideshow that you’re prompted to do some line exercises.
Line Exercises
So you can have them reach behind their backs into their imaginary crayon box or marker bin and pull out their favorite color, and then we can literally pull out an invisible crayon or marker.
I’ll say, “Hold it up in the air. Now work with me. Together we’re going to do a straight line.” They all stretch right across and do a straight line. Then, we’ll do a zigzag line. They have a lot of fun with it. It’s just a way to bring in some movement and get them up and out of their seats.
So we go through straight lines, zigzag lines, curvy lines, loop de loop lines. There’s a big variety of lines in this. The kids have fun with it and even older kids get a kick out of hearing the names of the lines, like a scalloped line or the castle line. These are lines that they’re very familiar with but they just didn’t know the names of them.
So then the next step is you’re going to hand them a printable. Now whatever your attitude is on printing is totally up to you. This can very easily be done without printing it.
If you want, just give kids a piece of copy paper or a piece of construction paper and display the printable on a board. They can use that as a guide. The idea is that they would take a marker and extend that line all the way across the page. You’re trying to get them to match the thickness and the pattern of the line.
Early Finishers
If they finish quickly, you could set out some crayons and have them start to fill in these little things. If they finish really quickly you can have them flip over this page and on the back, there’s a little screen in the slide show that prompts them to try some other lines that aren’t covered here.
This is certainly a quick glance at some of the basic lines but they’re certainly tons of other lines to be thinking about. Spirals is a big one that’s not on the handout. So you can have them play with some stuff on the back. That really is Session One.
I found over time that if I break the sessions up into manageable chunks, it’s more pleasant for the students and it’s more pleasant for you as a teacher. You’re just not trying to overdo it.
The other thing I should mention is that there is a file within the resource overview that offers guidelines, so if you’re working with really young kids (three/four-year-olds) it’ll have that little gray guide that they can trace so that they’re not having to freehand these lines.
Little guys seem to benefit from that so I just want to make sure you’re aware that there is a real young kids’ version of this handout too. That’s it for Session One.
PAUL KLEE ART PROJECT SESSION 2
So we move on a Session Two with another look at some images by Paul Klee. The kids get a real kick out of this. We look closer at what is called a continuous line.
A Look at Continuous Line
The whole idea with continuous line is that it’s one long line that just continues to tuck back in on itself and ultimately ends up making a drawing. So this usually ends up semi abstract. They get a kick out of looking at the pictures of his and trying to visually trace. They don’t need to get up on the screen and touch it. They can try to visually trace that line from their seats all the way through the drawing.
You want to show them a couple of examples of how this is done and or how he did it. There are a ton of artists that use continuous line, so this would be an opportunity in the slide show if you wanted to pull in some other resources that you might be familiar with. If you Google continuous line drawings, there’s a ton of fun stuff. But since I’m focusing on Paul Klee, I stuck with examples from his work.
The Wandering Dot
Once you show them this concept you’re going to pull out this handout. I call this one The Wandering Dot Handout. Basically the idea with this one is that you’re trying to get them to connect A to B but instead of just drawing a plain simple line you want them to have fun with it.
So this all represents one long continuous line. You want to encourage them to make a point in this long line to experiment with a couple of the lines that they have seen from Paul Klee’s work or that they have been thinking about from those line exercises.
There’s no right or wrong answer to this one. It’s meant to be quick but not real quick. You can put some music and I’m suggesting a 5-minute timer.
Five minutes to draw one line actually is a long time. So you you want to set that precedent right out of the gate that this is going to be a 5-minute activity so that they can pace themselves. If somebody gets there too early, they can flip the paper over and try a second line on the back.
Just draw two dots and connect the second line and go a little slower this time and see what that’s like. It’s okay if the line crosses over on itself. I encourage that. At the end they want to show their line.
I don’t know about you, but sometimes it’s overwhelming because every little kid in the classroom wants to show the teacher. One way to help with this is to have them show the path they just made with the line to the kid who sits next to them or their table mate or their shoulder partner or someone sitting nearby.
Have them show each other so that every single kid in the class has the pleasure of showing what they came up with. Then we move right along to the actual Studio Project.
Begin the Studio Project
All of these have just been exercises. I think they’re all really fun. They’re all visual. I mean you’re technically working with art materials during all of those but we’re really building all this up to make this silly line creature.
So the deal with the silly line creature is that you’re going to have them start in one spot and then they’re going to make a continuous long line.
It’s going to go up on a big adventure around the page. It’s crossing over itself, and it just continues doing some little zigs and zags. You emphasize that they can do:
- Curves
- Loops
- Sharp Corners
If they want, they can do some combination of all of them.
Show them examples. It’s important to show them some examples beforehand just so they have a sense of where we’re aiming with this. Otherwise they they tend to go a little overboard.
You’re going to be asking them to color in all the spaces. You want to really help make it as clear as possible to the little guys to not overdo it.
They’re going to take this line on a journey but then they’re ultimately coming back to home base to close it out and once they do they are going to have the fun of adding some eyes.
Now in the slide we include some examples where Paul Klee does it. He includes different kinds of eyes, maybe multiple sets of eyes. You’re going to add some fun legs.
I even encourage them to add a little smile or even some little arms if they want to. Some of them add a hat, and then they can add a little nose.
Then the idea is that they color it in. Now I had them color them with crayons, or you can use markers. You can do patterns, and you can pull in some other elements of art into that coloring process if you want to.
That marks the end of Session Two.
PAUL KLEE ART PROJECT SESSION 3
Art Show
Then you are going to have the kids spread out all the artwork on a table. I recommend the floor. We just spread them all out on the floor and try to get them all face in the same direction.
Everybody gathers around and we take a look at them. In this slideshow, I included some questioning prompts. You can partner two kids together or partner four kids together. It is very informal.
It doesn’t need to be a big production but have them answer the question that is on your screen or your smart board or however you’ve been showing all this stuff.
- Which one do you like best and why?
- Which one has the longest line?
- Which one is the thickest line?
- Which one has the silliest look to it?
They all end up pretty silly, so it’s just a chance for them to embrace the idea that these are not necessarily masterpieces. They were meant to be imaginative, silly, and fun.
Self-Assessment
So once you go over the art show you are going to finish the whole thing up with a little assessment.
- My line creature is made of one long continuous line.
- My line creature has eyes and legs.
- I used my materials carefully and tried my best on this project.
There’s also an opportunity down here, if you are printing these out, to give some individual feedback, if time permits and you really want to go the extra mile you can do that.
Then you would essentially be packing up all of these elements and sending this home in one paper clipped packet so that parents can get a sense of what’s been going on in the art room.
Early Finishers
Also I did throw into the file an early finisher suggestion and if you have time at any point on any of the sessions. If there’s a little window of extra time and you’re wondering how do I fill this gap, I just want to remind everybody in case you weren’t thinking about it or maybe you weren’t even aware of it, there is a kid’s book that was inspired by Paul Klee’s painting Cat and Bird.
The story is called The Cat and The Bird, and it was published in 2012. It’s a cute little story. See if you can get a copy of it or if you have a copy of your own, this is a great opportunity to read that book. I even found some read-alouds on YouTube and online. So if you don’t have a copy or you just like the idea of being able to play that and have the kids watch it while you run around and assemble these little packets for the kids, that’s an option that I am throwing out there.
So that is it for this lesson. I hope that you learned a few new things about Paul Klee and will have some fun using this approach to studying lines with your little ones. He’s also known for his use of shape and color so if you do want to explore more about him I encourage you to look at his work through the lens of shape or color and see what other ideas you could come up with.
Okay, that’s it. I put in some extra slides of course in the slide show, blank template style, so if you do decide to add any of your own content, that shouldn’t be too tricky for you.
Okay, enjoy! Can’t wait to see some feedback on this, if you try it. If you have any suggestions, ideas, different approaches to Paul Klee, or different little fun facts about him we’d love to hear it, so please don’t hesitate to share with the group. Okay, thanks!
More About the Paul Klee Art Unit
Engage little artists in a project-based study of Paul Klee and the concept of line in this unit of the Famous Artist series from Kids Art Projects 101.
Inside the unit you’ll find a 23-page unit guide full of information and tips for teaching this series of art lessons to students in preschool through grade 2.
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 Paul Klee
- A digital step-by-step studio project guide with clear directions, supply lists, and work sample photos
- A printable studio project follow-up activity
- A printable early finisher activity
- A digital lesson overview
- A printable self-assessment
Henri Matisse Abstract Art Project and Elementary Art Lessons