Unit Plan 10 (Grade 5 Art): Mood Through Color
Grade 5 art unit where students analyze how hue, value, intensity, and warm/cool colors shape mood, emphasis, and emotional tone in artworks.
Focus: Analyze how color choices influence emotional tone in artworks and designs. Students examine how artists use hue, value, and intensity (brightness/dullness), as well as warm and cool colors, to create specific moods and areas of emphasis.
Grade Level: 5
Subject Area: Art (Visual Arts • Responding)
Total Unit Duration: 1–3 weeks, 50–60 minutes per session
I. Introduction
Students explore how color can make an artwork feel calm, energetic, gloomy, cheerful, tense, or peaceful even before they notice details or story. They look closely at artworks, posters, and illustrations to identify how warm/cool palettes, light/dark values, and bright/dull colors work together to create emotional tone and focus. Through color-sorting, mini color studies, and written/visual responses, they learn to analyze and describe how color affects mood and emphasis.
Essential Questions
- How do color choices (warm vs. cool, bright vs. dull, light vs. dark) change the mood of an artwork?
- How can an artist use color to make one part of an artwork feel more important or intense than others?
- What words can I use to describe how color makes an artwork feel (e.g., calm, exciting, mysterious)?
- How does learning to analyze color and mood help me understand and create art more thoughtfully?
II. Objectives and Standards
Learning Objectives — Students will be able to:
- Identify warm and cool colors and describe how each group can create different moods.
- Analyze artworks and images to describe how color palettes and value contrasts contribute to emotional tone and emphasis.
- Sort and match color schemes to mood words (e.g., calm, energetic, sad, joyful, mysterious) and explain their choices.
- Create small color studies that intentionally communicate different moods using limited color palettes.
- Use mood vocabulary and color terms in short written or verbal responses to explain how color choices affect how an artwork feels.
Standards Alignment — 5th Grade (NCAS-Aligned)
- VA:Re7.5a — Analyze how elements of art and principles of design create mood, structure, and emphasis.
- Example: Students explain how color choices create emotional tone.
Success Criteria — Student Language
- I can tell the difference between warm and cool colors and say how they usually make an artwork feel.
- I can look at an artwork and describe its mood using feeling words and color vocabulary.
- I can match or create a color palette that fits a mood like calm, excited, or sad and explain why.
- I can make small color studies that show different moods on purpose using color.
- I can explain how color creates emphasis by making one area stand out more than others.