4th Grade

Small groups of students will first speculate on a chronology for these three selected paintings. Then each group will explore one of these three paintings, looking closely at the artwork, discussing it and finding out about the artist and its context. Students next speculate about what the painting tells about the past and how people lived at this time. After small groups present what they discovered and speculated, class as a whole returns to the original speculated chronology and corrects it if needed. To conclude lesson, each student selects two of the three artworks about which to write. Each student will compare and contrast and reveal what each tells the viewer about the past and how people lived at that time.

Through careful looking and reading a painting for information, students will better understand the journey out to California via the Isthmus of Panama during the California Gold Rush.

Students will learn how artists communicate through portraiture, about the literary term, allegory, and then they will write a poem applying these communication strategies. They will also learn about facial proportions.

Students describe the social, political, cultural, and economic life and interactions among people of California from the pre-Columbian societies to the Spanish mission and Mexican rancho periods.