Sonia Delaunay - The Complete Series (5 lessons)

With detailed lesson plans, slides, and a range of printable resources, you will find everything you need to teach this Y3/4 scheme of work to your class, who will soon be creating their very own Sonia Delaunay-inspired artworks!

To promote discussion, children are first given a set of picture cards and encouraged to discuss both the artwork and what they think the artist might be like, based on their work. The artist is then revealed, and children find out about the early life of Sonia Delaunay, including discussing the influence that the work of other artists had on her early paintings. In their independent work, children choose one of Delaunay’s works to analyse in more detail. In the alternative activity, children are challenged to recreate their own portrait in the early style of Sonia Delaunay.

In this lesson, children continue to learn about the life and art of Sonia Delaunay. In particular, they focus on her experimentation with colour using a style of art known as Orphism. Children learn about complementary and harmonious colours, and then analyse some of Delaunay’s works with this knowledge. In their independent activities, children explore the use and effect of colour in their own artworks.

In this lesson, children focus on how Sonia Delaunay created a sense of rhythm and movement in her artwork. They explore a collaborative piece of art made by Sonia and a poet, Blaise Cendrars, about a train journey across Russia. In their independent work, children create their own visual accompaniment to a Robert Louis Stevenson poem about a train journey. In the FSD? activity, children design a piece of artwork to represent their journey to school.

Children learn how Sonia Delaunay began to design clothes. They explore how her artistic style impacted on her designs. In their independent activities, children create their own clothes designs based on the style of Sonia Delaunay. Alternatively, children design fabric patterns adhering to a specific client’s requests.

In this final lesson, children begin by exploring how the work of Sonia Delaunay influenced both individual artists and the genre of modern art itself. They discover just how wide-ranging and successful her art and fashion designs became, and how she brought art into everyday life. In their independent work, children create a factsheet, booklet or presentation about her life and work. In the FSD? activity, children are challenged to create a piece of artwork in honour and memory of Sonia Delaunay.