Greek Columns Study- Sixth Grade

The Core Knowledge Visual Arts Curriculum for sixth grade covers Classical Art and Architecture.  Since Washington, DC is full of Greek Architectural influences, I had the sixth graders choose a landmark in DC to draw depicting one of the three Classical Greek Columns (Ionic, Doric and Corinthian).  I had images available to them of the Jefferson Memorial (Ionic Columns), Lincoln Memorial (Doric Columns) and The National Archives (Corinthian Columns).  

The students were given a 8 1/2"X12" white piece of paper with charcoal pencils to draw their building with.  I reminded them that the emphasis should be the columns.  After they completed their drawing, I gave them a 15"X30" piece of white paper.  We looked at images of perspective and identified the vanishing points in various works of art.  
We then drew a one-point perspective drawing together.  The vanishing point was in the middle of the paper.  They drew lines from the vanishing point to each of the four corners of the paper.  We drew a path from the bottom of the paper to the VP (vanishing point).  Then, we utilized the element of space by drawing trees getting smaller toward the VP.  Each students chose what they wanted in the sky and what colors to paint with after outlining everything with permanent marker.  After the painting was dry, the picture of the building was bout out and placed over the VP.