Capture the exhilaration and the exhaustion of exercise in a watercolor resist.

• 1.

  Play your favorite music, and exercise, move, or dance to it vigorously for about 10 minutes. When you finish, let yourself rest. How do you feel? If movement is impossible, watch an exercise or dance video.

• 2.

  On white paper, use Crayola® Crayons to draw yourself as you would feel after you have been exercising or dancing. Would you be relaxed or energized? Draw yourself in a similar position. How would your face look?

• 3.

  Cover a table top with recycled newspaper. Use Crayola Watercolors and Brushes to paint colorful areas of your drawing, using a crayon resist technique. Dry flat.

• 4.

  Discuss your experiences with classmates. Make a bar graph with crayon that shows students' different responses.

Standards

• LA: Engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions on grade level topics and texts, building on others' ideas and expressing their own clearly.
• LA: Prepare for and participate effectively in a range of conversations and collaborations with diverse partners, building on others' ideas and expressing their own clearly and persuasively.
• LA: Adapt speech to a variety of contexts and tasks, using formal English when appropriate to task and situation.
• LA: Present information, findings, and supporting evidence such that listeners can follow the line of reasoning and the organization, development, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience.
• MATH: Represent measurement quantities using diagrams such that feature a measurement scale.
• SCI: Ask questions about the natural and human-built worlds.
• SS: Describe ways in which language, stories, folktales, music, and artistic creations serve as expressions of culture and influence behavior of people living in a particular culture.
• VA: Use art materials and tools in a safe and responsible manner.
• VA: Use visual structures of art to communicate ideas.
• VA: Select and use subject matter, symbols, and ideas to communicate meaning.

Adaptations

• Student artwork can be compiled into a quilt format for display and viewing. Students can be asked to write a summary paragraph describing their movements and feelings after exercising. Primary students may need the assistance of an adult to articulate their responses.
• Students may have themselves videotaped while moving. Student groups can analyze the different poses they view on the tape and use this new knowledge to revise their original artwork. The student video can also be uploaded to a class website and shared with parents. Students can be challenged to talk with their parents about their feelings after exercising and how this type of exercise is important for continued good health.
• After viewing videotapes of classmates, students can trace life-size poses of each other in a pose captured in the video. These can be displayed in the classroom for viewing and discussion.
• Upper elementary students can with this activity when it is presented to primary students. Upper elementary students can do the videotaping, discuss with primary students the different types of emotions and assist with the writing component.