Five Minute Museum: Paul Klee

Paul Klee, 1911

This is another Five Minute Museum mini lesson that is taught during the first five minutes of the lesson period. The curriculum sets Paul Klee as one of the artists studied in third grade but the plan is useable at any grade level.

LINK TO THE LESSON PLAN

All of the paintings in the lesson plan are in the public domain and can be downloaded in various sizes from Wikimedia Commons.

These are the additional works (to use, but not included as samples, in the attached lesson plan) by Paul Klee:

•  Blumenmythgos, 1918
• Cat and Bird, 1928
• Death and Fire, 1940
• der Goldfisch, 1925
• Die Vase, 1938
• Ohne Titel (der Todesengel), 1940
• Red Balloon, 1922
• Revolution des Viadukts, 1937
• Senecio, 1922
• Sinbad the Sailor, 1923
• Tale a la Hoffman, 1921
• Twittering MAchine, 1922

 Because Paul Klee used oil paints, colored pencils and watercolors together in the same paintings, his works are fun to display as samples in the painting center where children can experiment using multiple media and tools in a single work of art.

Red Balloon by Paul Klee, 1922

While there are many fun extension activities to accompany this unit of study, rather than have the entire class duplicate a particular art project, I prefer to show students several works of art created by other children who are imitating Klee's style. This provides my students with inspiration for their future works of art but still gives them the freedom to choose.

Links to websites with samples of children's artwork inspired by Paul Klee:
Paul Klee Inspired Abstract Fish
Paul Klee Goes to Africa
Paul Klee Art Projects for Kids
Broken Window Drawings