Visual & Performing Arts · 2nd Grade · Movement and Story: Dance and Theater · Weeks 19-27

Designing Scenery and Setting

Students explore how scenery and backdrops create the environment for a play or performance.

• Common Core State Standards
• NCAS: Creating TH.Cr1.1.2
• NCAS: Performing TH.Pr5.1.2

About This Topic

Scenery and backdrop design gives second graders a chance to apply visual art skills directly to storytelling. Students learn that a painted forest flat, a few prop trees, or even a simple colored sheet tells the audience where and when the story is happening before a single word is spoken. NCAS standard TH.Cr1.1.2 asks students to imagine and select ideas for a dramatic situation, and choosing what belongs in a background is exactly that creative decision-making process.

Designing a setting also teaches students that every visual choice carries meaning. A bright yellow background feels different from a gray one. Tall, dark tree shapes suggest a scary forest, while round, leafy shapes suggest a friendly one. These are the same principles students explore in visual art, applied to a theatrical context. Students who have studied color and shape can transfer that knowledge here in a concrete, purposeful way.

Active learning is particularly effective for this topic because students need to negotiate shared scenic choices, compromise when working in groups, and test their ideas by looking at them from the audience's perspective. Collaboration on a backdrop design builds communication skills alongside artistic ones.

Key Questions

1. What would you put in a background to make it look like a magical forest?
2. Why does the setting, or where the story happens, matter so much in a play?
3. How would you design a simple background for your own short scene?

Learning Objectives

• Design a simple backdrop for a play, selecting elements that communicate the setting.
• Identify how specific scenic choices, like color and shape, influence audience perception of a story's mood.
• Compare and contrast the environmental needs of two different characters in a short scene.
• Explain the function of scenery in establishing the time and place of a theatrical performance.
• Critique a peer's backdrop design, offering specific suggestions for improvement based on the scene's narrative.

Before You Start

Elements of Art: Color and Shape

Why: Students need to understand how colors and shapes can convey different feelings and ideas before applying them to create mood in scenery.

Elements of Theater: Character and Story

Why: Students must have a basic understanding of what a story is and who characters are to design a setting that supports them.

Key Vocabulary

backdrop	A large piece of painted cloth or other material hung at the back of a stage to represent scenery.
setting	The time and place in which the story of a play or performance happens.
prop	An object used on stage by actors during a performance, such as a chair, a book, or a fake tree.
scenery	The painted backdrops and physical structures, like trees or buildings, that create the environment on a stage.
mood	The feeling or atmosphere that a setting or scenery creates for the audience.

Watch Out for These Misconceptions

Common Misconception

A backdrop has to be realistic and detailed to be effective.

What to Teach Instead

Simple shapes and bold colors communicate a setting more clearly than complex, cluttered designs. Showing students examples of professional theatrical backdrops helps them see that strong, simple choices often read better from a distance. Group design challenges reinforce this by letting students test which elements their peers can actually identify.

Common Misconception

The scenery is less important than the actors and what they say.

What to Teach Instead

The setting shapes the audience's emotional response before any dialogue begins. Active investigation activities where students view the same short script with two different backdrop sketches and then discuss how each one changed their expectations help them feel this difference directly.

Active Learning Ideas

Think-Pair-Share: What Does This Place Look Like?

Read aloud a short scene description (e.g., a magical forest, an underwater cave, a school cafeteria). Students think about what they would put in the background, share their ideas with a partner, and then explain their choices to the group, naming specific colors and shapes they would use.

15 min·Pairs

Inquiry Circle: Group Backdrop Sketch

Small groups receive a setting prompt card (e.g., 'a sunny farmyard' or 'a spooky haunted house'). Together, they sketch the key elements they would include in a backdrop, assign who would draw each part, and present their plan to another group to get one suggestion before they finalize their sketch.

35 min·Small Groups

Gallery Walk: Setting Identification

Display six to eight backdrop sketches from different groups around the room without labels. Students walk through the gallery and write on a sticky note which setting they think each sketch depicts, then reveal the intended setting to see how well the visual elements communicated the place.

20 min·Whole Class

Individual: Quick Sketch Challenge

Give each student a setting prompt and ten minutes to sketch the three most important elements they would put in a background. Encourage them to consider foreground, midground, and background layers, and to use color to signal the mood of the scene.

15 min·Individual

Real-World Connections

• Set designers for Broadway musicals, like 'The Lion King,' create elaborate environments using painted flats, projections, and physical structures to transport audiences to the African savanna.
• Community theaters often use repurposed materials and simple painted backdrops to establish the setting for local productions, making theater accessible and visually engaging for audiences.
• Theme park designers create immersive environments for rides and attractions, using detailed scenery and props to tell stories and evoke specific moods for visitors.

Assessment Ideas

Exit Ticket

Provide students with a picture of a simple stage. Ask them to draw and label one prop or piece of scenery that would help tell the story of a specific fairy tale (e.g., Cinderella's castle, Jack and the Beanstalk's giant beanstalk). Include one sentence explaining why they chose it.

Discussion Prompt

Present students with two different backdrops for the same story: one bright and cheerful, the other dark and mysterious. Ask: 'How do these different settings change how you feel about the story? Which one would you choose for a happy scene, and which for a scary scene? Why?'

Quick Check

During group work on a backdrop design, circulate and ask each group: 'What is the most important thing your scenery needs to show the audience about where this story takes place? What is one color choice you made and why?'

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I teach backdrop design to second graders who say they can't draw?

Focus on shapes, colors, and symbols rather than realistic drawing. A green triangle represents a tree; a yellow circle represents the sun. Using cut paper shapes instead of drawing removes the barrier for students who feel intimidated by blank paper and often produces bolder, clearer designs that work well as theatrical backdrops.

What low-cost materials work for a classroom stage backdrop?

Butcher paper or kraft paper rolls taped to a wall are inexpensive and large enough to be impactful. Tempera paint, large sponges for texture, and cut-paper collage all work well at this scale. For a temporary backdrop, painted cardboard appliance boxes can stand behind performers without requiring wall space.

How does scenery design connect to the visual art standards students already cover?

Scenery design directly applies skills from visual art standards: students use line to suggest space, color to convey mood, and shape to represent objects. The theatrical context gives students a concrete purpose for those skills, reinforcing the same NCAS visual art creating standards through a different medium and audience.

What active learning strategies work best for teaching set design to young learners?

Gallery walks with identification challenges, where students guess the setting without labels, are highly effective. They give students immediate feedback on whether their visual choices are communicating the intended environment. Group design challenges with revision rounds also build the habit of viewing your own work through an audience's eyes.