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Project Grade 3 Art & Music

Juniper Hollow Clean-Water Steps Mural: A Grade 3 Fourths Project

A four-session grade 3 project where teams paint a mock-up of a welcome mural on four equal panels, one per water-cleaning step, and caption each fourth.

Objectives

  1. Students will split a mural wall into four equal panels and name each as one fourth.
  2. Students will paint one cleaning step in each panel and caption it.
  3. Students will present the mural and explain how each fourth shows one step.

Vocabulary

Key words: mural, panel, fourth, equal parts, caption

Teacher overview

The Juniper Hollow Water Plant is a made-up plant that cleans water for its town. Its front lobby has a bare wall, and the plant wants a welcome mural that shows visitors the four steps water takes to get clean. Over four sessions, teams design and paint a poster-board mock-up of that mural. The wall is split into four equal panels, so each step fills one fourth of the mural. The art and the math depend on each other here, because the mural only works if the four panels are equal parts of one whole. Teams paint each step, caption it, and present the finished mock-up to the plant. The project gives students a practical reason to work with fourths and to write to inform.

Juniper Hollow Clean-Water Steps Mural: A Grade 3 Fourths Project — Grade 3 Art & Music
Name: ____________________________ Date: ______________

Project Brief

Driving question: How can we paint a welcome mural that shows the four steps water takes to get clean? The wall is split into four equal panels.

Client: The Juniper Hollow Water Plant is a made-up plant. Its staff have asked your team to design a mural for the lobby wall. The mural greets visitors and shows how the plant cleans water.

The four steps to show, in order:

  • Catch the Trash: a screen catches leaves and trash.
  • Let Dirt Sink: the dirt clumps and sinks to the bottom.
  • Clean in Sand: the water flows through a sand filter.
  • Kill Germs and Store: a small amount of chlorine kills germs, and the clean water is stored until people use it.

Rules for the mural:

  • Split the wall into 4 equal panels. Each panel is one fourth of the whole mural.
  • Put one step in each panel, in the correct order.
  • Use no more than 6 paint colors in all.
  • Give each panel a short caption that tells what the step does.

What you turn in: A poster-board mock-up split into 4 equal panels. Each panel shows one step and has a caption. Your team also gives a short talk to the class, who play the plant staff.

Milestones

  1. Session 1 (Plan the fourths): Your team learns the four steps. You split the plan sheet into 4 equal panels and write one step in each. Output: a plan sheet split into fourths with the four steps named in order.
  2. Session 2 (Sketch each panel): Your team draws a rough sketch for each of the four panels. Each sketch shows one step. Output: four rough panel sketches, one per step.
  3. Session 3 (Paint the mock-up): Your team picks its colors, using 6 or fewer, and paints the four panels on poster board. Output: a painted mock-up on 4 equal panels.
  4. Session 4 (Caption and present): Your team writes a caption for each panel. Then you present the mural and explain how each fourth shows one step. Output: four captions and a short team talk.

From Water for Schools (waterforschools.org). This material is in the public domain (CC0) and may be copied, edited, and shared freely.

Rubric
Criterion Emerging Developing Proficient Advanced
Equal fourths The wall is not split into four equal panels The wall has four panels but they are clearly unequal The wall is split into four roughly equal panels, each one fourth of the whole The four panels are equal, and the team can explain that each is one fourth and that two panels make one half
Steps and order Fewer than three steps are shown Only three steps appear, or all four appear but one or more are out of order All four steps appear, one per panel, in the correct order All four steps appear in order, and each panel clearly shows what that step does
Color rule and captions More than six colors are used, or captions are missing Six or fewer colors are used but some captions are missing or unclear Six or fewer colors are used and every panel has a clear caption Six or fewer colors are used, every caption is clear, and the team explains one color choice
Presentation The talk is incomplete or hard to follow The talk shows the mural but does not explain the fourths The talk explains how each fourth shows one step in order The talk explains the fourths, the steps, and answers a question from the plant staff

Differentiation

Support

Provide a plan sheet with the four equal panels already drawn and the step names printed in order, so teams can focus on the art and the captions. Offer caption starters such as "This step ___ the water."

Extension

Ask the team to show, on a small extra sketch, what two of the four panels look like together, and to name that amount as two fourths and as one half of the mural.

ELL supports

Give each step name a small picture on the step list, and let students say the caption aloud before writing it. Allow captions to be a short phrase plus a labeled sketch rather than a full sentence.

Extensions

If a nearby water plant offers a tour or a photo set, compare the real cleaning steps to the four panels, and have teams add one true detail they learned to the matching panel.