The Fantastic Jungles of Henri Rousseau

Yesterday I had my first Visual Communications class for this second half of the year. Since this year our theme in the Art room is "The Art of the Picture Book" I wanted to integrate yet another story, artist, and activity combo! We only have one computer lab and one new lap top cart so it has been challenging getting in there to teach the class during our CDT testing in the school. With my younger primary students grades K-2 we watched this really cool video that uses the children's book "The Fantastic Jungles of Henri Rousseau" by Michelle Markel and combines some great Parisian music in the background. I read the story to them through he slides and we discussed the pictures and some of the words used in the stories. We then looked at a power point presentation of his works and discussed his use of overlapping, color, and played an "I Spy" activity out of critiquing his work.

Henri Rousseau Video 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9VHjJvRcFw

(Above is the link to the video, for some reason the video wouldn't load on here for me, sorry!)

After we discussed Henri's art work and style, we then went onto the NGA KIDS website to create our own compositions in the style of Henri Rousseau. We recently downloaded the NGA Kids APP to our I-PADS and we used this for the Kinders which worked out fabulously. They were engaged, excited, and really enjoyed putting their own pieces together. Their compositions rocked! If you are interested in integration technology into your art classes this is a simple and easy way to do so and it allows the students to use an interactive website geared towards visual arts. Enjoy and I hope you have as much fun with this activity as my students and I did!

Creative Wishes,

Ashley