Art in Everyday Life: Design Around UsActivities & Teaching Strategies
First graders learn best when they can touch, see and talk about real objects they recognize. When students handle ordinary items like chairs, signs or cereal boxes, they connect abstract ideas about design to their own lives. Active learning turns everyday surroundings into a living textbook where design choices become visible and meaningful.
Learning Objectives
- 1Identify examples of design in everyday objects such as clothing, furniture, and buildings.
- 2Compare the aesthetic qualities of at least two different architectural styles found in their community.
- 3Explain how specific design choices, like color or shape, influence the function of a common object.
- 4Analyze how art is integrated into the design of common items like toys or packaging.
- 5Critique the design of a familiar object, suggesting one improvement based on its function or appearance.
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Think-Pair-Share: Redesign This Object
Show students a photograph of a familiar object with an obvious design problem, such as a doorknob placed too high for children or a confusingly labeled faucet. Pairs discuss what the design problem is and propose one change that would fix it. The class shares solutions and considers how design affects function.
Prepare & details
Analyze how design choices influence the function of everyday objects.
Facilitation Tip: During Think-Pair-Share: Redesign This Object, hand each pair one unaltered everyday object so they can feel its weight, texture and edges before redesigning it.
Setup: Standard classroom seating; students turn to a neighbor
Materials: Discussion prompt (projected or printed), Optional: recording sheet for pairs
Gallery Walk: Design Detectives
Post photographs of six everyday designed objects around the room: a shoe, a classroom chair, a door handle, a traffic sign, a playground structure, and a book cover. Students walk through with response cards asking what this object is supposed to do and whether its design helps or hurts that purpose.
Prepare & details
Compare the aesthetic qualities of different architectural styles in the community.
Facilitation Tip: During Gallery Walk: Design Detectives, place three pairs of similar objects side by side so students compare a visually plain but functional item with a visually elaborate but awkward one.
Setup: Wall space or tables arranged around room perimeter
Materials: Large paper/poster boards, Markers, Sticky notes for feedback
Architecture Walk: Our School Building
Walk students through two contrasting spaces in the school building, such as a wide hallway and a narrow one, or a bright classroom and a dim one. At each stop, students discuss what design choices made this space feel different. This brings abstract design principles into immediate sensory experience students can describe.
Prepare & details
Explain how art is integrated into the design of common items like toys or furniture.
Facilitation Tip: During Architecture Walk: Our School Building, give each student a simple clipboard with a checklist of three features to find: color, shape and purpose.
Setup: Wall space or tables arranged around room perimeter
Materials: Large paper/poster boards, Markers, Sticky notes for feedback
Design Challenge: Make It Better
Give each student a simple everyday object, such as a pencil case or a classroom storage bin. They identify one thing they would redesign and sketch their improved version. They explain to a partner what problem their redesign solves, completing the full design cycle: observe, critique, propose, explain.
Prepare & details
Analyze how design choices influence the function of everyday objects.
Facilitation Tip: During Design Challenge: Make It Better, circulate with a small set of sticky notes so students can immediately record improvements without losing their train of thought.
Setup: Wall space or tables arranged around room perimeter
Materials: Large paper/poster boards, Markers, Sticky notes for feedback
Teaching This Topic
Start with objects students already use so the content feels relevant, not abstract. Move from observation to action to anchor new vocabulary in concrete experience. Avoid rushing to definitions; instead, let students discover terms like ‘shape’, ‘color’ and ‘function’ through guided noticing. Research shows that when young learners attach meaning to terms by using them in context, retention improves and misconceptions shrink.
What to Expect
By the end of these activities, students will point out design details in common objects and explain why those choices matter. They will show this understanding by labeling, sketching, discussing and improving designs with clear reasons. Successful learners move from noticing ‘it looks nice’ to ‘this shape makes it easier to hold’.
These activities are a starting point. A full mission is the experience.
- Complete facilitation script with teacher dialogue
- Printable student materials, ready for class
- Differentiation strategies for every learner
Watch Out for These Misconceptions
Common MisconceptionDuring Think-Pair-Share: Redesign This Object, watch for students who add decorations without changing the object’s function. Redirect them by asking, ‘How does your new shape or color help someone use this better?’
What to Teach Instead
During Think-Pair-Share: Redesign This Object, hand out a simple problem card with the object’s intended use. Ask pairs to sketch one change that solves that problem and label how it works better.
Common MisconceptionDuring Gallery Walk: Design Detectives, watch for students who focus only on color or pattern. Redirect them by asking, ‘What happens if you press this button? What shape makes that possible?’
What to Teach Instead
During Gallery Walk: Design Detectives, place two identical objects with one functional flaw next to a similar but improved version. Ask students to point to the flaw and describe how the improved version fixes it.
Common MisconceptionDuring Architecture Walk: Our School Building, watch for students who call a feature ‘pretty’ without naming its purpose. Redirect by asking, ‘Why do you think the door is that shape? Who needs to open it?’
What to Teach Instead
During Architecture Walk: Our School Building, provide a photo scavenger hunt where students must find features that help people move safely, like railings, ramps and wide doorways, and explain why each matters.
Assessment Ideas
After Think-Pair-Share: Redesign This Object, show a picture of the original object and one student’s redesign. Ask the class to point to one design change and explain how it makes the object work better.
During Gallery Walk: Design Detectives, pause at each station and ask, ‘What is one thing the designer did to make this object easier or harder to use? How do you know?’ Listen for specific references to shape, size, color or placement.
After Design Challenge: Make It Better, collect students’ labeled sketches and read their sentences to assess whether they can name both a change and its purpose in one clear sentence.
Extensions & Scaffolding
- Challenge: Provide a blank template of a common object and ask early finishers to redesign it for a different audience, such as a chair for a baby versus a chair for a teacher.
- Scaffolding: Offer sentence starters on sentence strips for students who struggle to explain their design choices, like ‘I changed the color to ____ so that ____.’
- Deeper exploration: Invite students to interview the school custodian or cafeteria manager about why certain objects in the building look the way they do, then share findings with the class.
Key Vocabulary
| Design | The plan or drawing produced to show the look and function or workings of an object before it is made. |
| Architecture | The art and practice of designing and constructing buildings. |
| Function | The purpose or job that an object is made to do. |
| Aesthetic | Relating to beauty or the appreciation of beauty; how something looks and feels. |
| Industrial Design | The process of creating the form and features of manufactured products, like chairs or cars. |
Suggested Methodologies
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