I taught the last hour from 11:00 - 12:00 and we did "Groovy Math and Art"...so we did this Mondrian project. I taught this to 3rd grade and 4th grade.
I started by introducing Mondrian with some of his paintings. I put together a quick PPT and had the kids compare and contrast his "Composition II with Red, Blue and Yellow" against "Broadway Boogie Woogie".
"Broadway Boogie Woogie", 1942-43 vs. "Composition II in Red, Blue and Yellow" 1930
*I borrowed these images from various online sources.
We discussed how Mondrian's style changed over time and we looked at "The Red Tree" vs. "The Gray Tree" ....seeing how he abstracts the tree over time...simplifying lines, shapes and colors.
"The Red Tree" , 1910 "The Gray Tree" , 1911
"Composition No.10 Pier and Ocean" 1915
"Composition No. II; Composition in Line and Color" 1913
This is a nifty website with a lot of his paintings, in chronological order...
http://www.wikipaintings.org/en/piet-mondrian
The Project
The kids created a simple collage using one red, one yellow and one blue (pre-cut) shape. Then they added at least 3 black lines to break up their composition...and the math portion of this was to calculate the area of each primary color shape and white spaces if they had time. We measured with rulers and found the length and width in centimeters.
Overall, I think the kids enjoyed learned about Mondrian....their art always looks good and they understood how to find the area pretty well. Success!
I typed up these sheets for their data...made it easy for them to just plug in the numbers.
