Art Teachers: Applying The IPMM Pedagogy through National Core Arts Standards for K-12 Students

Each pillar of our ‘Experience, Reflect, Make’ sequence incorporates several lesson plans to roll out for each age group, and no matter what the scale of the activity, discussion is highly encouraged. 

Each lesson plan and accompanying worksheet should be a collaborative experience where students share their work, so that the whole class can learn from each other, and enrich individual & collective learning. 

The IPaintMyMind Art Lesson Plan Book (K-12 | 2023 – 2024) contains 3 pillars which in sequence are:

Art & Inspiration: Your Featured Artist/s (Experience)

This pillar provides a general jumping-off point for students to begin discussions and deep critical thinking. Students can pick a Featured Artist either individually or as a class, and undertake the activities included in Phase 1, focusing on the Featured Artist. Through these 6 activities, students will develop their art vocabulary, their ability to unpack pieces of art formally, and their presentation skills. Phase 1 is all about diving in, and immersing yourself within the work of one artist. (Although it can be repeated with new artists as many times as needed!)

Pillar 1 focuses on terms, techniques used, and the artist’s career and backstory, creating a wider lens for interpreting the Featured Artist’s work. Students are encouraged to dive in headfirst to the art, focusing less on precise terminology and more on how art makes you feel, what about it makes you feel that way, and what the artist may have been trying to say. 

There’s a special emphasis on discussion and presentation in the Pillar, because class-wide collaboration will enrich the individual students’ understanding of their Featured Artist. 

Pillar 1 supports NCAS standards including: 

Anchor Standard 2: Organize and develop artistic ideas and work.

• Enduring Understanding: Artists and designers experiment with forms, structures, materials, concepts, media, and art-making approaches
• Essential Question(s): How do artists work? How do artists and designers determine whether a particular direction in their work is effective? How do artists and designers learn from trial and error?

(As per the National Core Arts Standards.)

Anchor Standard 4: Select, analyze, and interpret artistic work for presentation.


• Enduring Understanding: Artists and other presenters consider various techniques, methods, venues, and criteria when analyzing, selecting, and curating objects artifacts, and artworks for preservation and presentation.
• Essential Question(s): How are artworks cared for and by whom? What criteria, methods, and processes are used to select work for preservation or presentation? Why do people value objects, artifacts, and artworks, and select them for presentation?

(As per the National Core Arts Standards.)

Anchor Standard 7: Perceive and analyze artistic work

• Enduring Understanding: Individual aesthetic and empathetic awareness developed through engagement with art can lead to understanding and appreciation of self, others, the natural world, and constructed environments.
• Essential Question(s): How do life experiences influence the way you relate to art? How does learning about art impact how we perceive the world? What can we learn from our responses to art?

(As per the National Core Arts Standards.)

Discovering Context: Research, History, Techniques (Reflect)

Pillar 1 finished with students thinking more about mediums, tools, and techniques, and becoming an art historian / curator is how students can explore how they might express themselves best.

The second Pillar is all about creating connections between artists, movements, and visual styles, and putting art within a broader social context. These activities focus on comparing different artists, finding similarities, and looking for art in your everyday life. Students are free to choose many different artists, and become curators of their own!

This pillar is focused on the student becoming a researcher, a historian, a curator, and an artist all at the same time. While Pillar 1 was about drilling down to learn more about the Featured Artist and other artists in our collection, Pillar 2 is built around discovery.

After unpacking the artist specifically, we zoom out to think about artists working with similar techniques, in the same cities, and with similar subject matter or projects. We encourage students to engage in what we like to call ‘Rabbit Hole curation.’ What we mean is, let one question lead to another when researching art history and learning more about various techniques. 

Pillar 2 supports NCAS standards including: 

Anchor Standard 11: Relate artistic ideas and works with societal, cultural, and historical context to deepen understanding

• Enduring Understanding: People develop ideas and understandings of society, culture, and history through their interactions with and analysis of art.

• Essential Question(s): How does art help us understand the lives of people of different times, places, and cultures? How is art used to impact the views of a society? How does art preserve aspects of life?

(Taken from the National Core Arts Standards.)

Anchor Standard 7: Perceive and analyze artistic work

• Enduring Understanding: Visual imagery influences understanding of and responses to the world.
• Essential Question(s): What is an image? Where and how do we encounter images in our world? How do images influence our views of the world?

(As per the National Core Arts Standards.)

Pillar 1 finished with students thinking more about mediums, tools, and techniques, and becoming an art historian / curator is how students can explore how they might express themselves best.

Presenting Finished Works: Creating Your Own Art Gallery (Create)

Where Pillar 2 was about zooming out to explore the wider world of art, Pillar 3 brings it back home for the students. Using all of the concepts, tools, and techniques that they learned in earlier activities, students will create work of their own based on several prompts. They’ll focus on their own tastes, personal history, and style. At the end of Pillar 3, your classroom will create works for their very own Art Gallery, to be hung in the classroom or school hallway. 

The most impactful part of engaging with art is the ways in which it spawns new ideas, inspires action, and produces more creation by the viewer. At IPaintMyMind, we often talk about providing the experience of art and being open to the creative solutions of the future that arise from that seed. Enjoy!

Pillar 3 supports NCAS standards including: 

Anchor Standard 1: Generate and Conceptualize Artistic Works and Ideas.

• Creating Enduring Understanding: Creativity and innovative thinking are essential life skills that can be developed.

• Essential Question(s): What conditions, attitudes, and behaviors support creativity and innovative thinking? What factors prevent or encourage people to take creative risks? How does collaboration expand the creative process?

(Taken from the National Core Arts Standards.)

Anchor Standard 5: Develop and refine artistic techniques and work for presentation. 

• Enduring Understanding: Artists, curators and others consider a variety of factors and methods including evolving technologies when preparing and refining artwork for display and or when deciding if and how to preserve and protect it.

• Essential Question(s): What methods and processes are considered when preparing artwork for presentation or preservation? How does refining artwork affect its meaning to the viewer? What criteria are considered when selecting work for presentation, a portfolio, or a collection?

(Taken from the National Core Arts Standards.)

By leading your students to create a bunch of artwork, you’ll have plenty of options to create your own Art Gallery!!

Illuminating the student’s perspective, and drawing out their own artistic voice or vantage point, we hope to empower students to realize that everyone is creative and an artist in their own way, and that art is always around us. Rather than speaking about art as a separate action, we want it to flow naturally from investigating the work of your Featured Artists and embarking on your curation journey. 

Students will have undergone the whole journey, from simply learning about artists to becoming artists of their own, or Experience, Reflect, Make! 

We’re proud of how our pedagogy has been intentionally structured to satisfy National Core Arts Standards and hope our Annual Art Lesson Plan Book can support you too!