Date: November 10, 2003
Grade Level: 6
Subject(s):
Duration: Four 50-minute sessions
Description: Students will gain a beginning knowledge of what was important to pre-historical groups by studying pre-historic cave paintings found around the world. Students will create works of art through cave drawings. Students will use mediums closely related (as possible) to those used in pre-historic times. Students will also be exposed to sounds of that time (through a collection of animal and nature sounds).
Goals:
Prehistory, Hunter Gatherer Societies, Origins of Man
Concept(s): Studying the origins of man helps students to understand human history and the theory of evolution.
Objectives: Students will be able to gain information about the people of the Stone Age, visualize that they have gone back in time, and create a collaborative work of art in a giant mural-type cave painting.
Materials:
Procedure:
Lesson Prerequisite:
A beginning knowledge of what was important to pre-historical groups by studying pre-historic cave paintings and the pre-history chapters of the students' Social Studies texts.
Students create their depiction of cave paintings in sketches at their desks. Sketches are to be approved by the teacher for mural painting.
Mural Procedure:
Collect all materials to be used for the painting the day before. (Students share responsibility of collecting materials needed for project.) Post scrunched up brown paper covering the bulletin board. Each child should have a cup, plate, and a popsicle stick (for mixing colors).
Warm-up------ playing CD of forest, cave sounds in background with lowered lights. Ask students to be seated and take out their approved cave painting sketches....then recite the following to them... "We are entering a sacred cave. We must be very quiet. Close your eyes." Allow students to listen to the sounds of the cave. "Open your eyes. Let's look at what is available to us before we begin our paintings."
Materials should be distributed to a group by their facilitator. As they get into position with their sketches and in their groups along the bulletin board, recite: "Imagine that the stick of charcoal you are holding is a stick from yesterday's fire that has cooled, and we are using the charred wood to draw. Close your eyes again, and we will go back in time. It has been a long time since we have been on a hunt, and our family is getting very hungry. We have entered our sacred cave, to ask the spirits to help us to catch some large animals to feed us, and to provide our clothes. By drawing the animals, we will hunt on the walls of our sacred cave; we will have power. We will be as fast as the deer, as strong as the bear and the mighty buffalo. Our drawings are as sacred and as special as this cave." With lights lowered and CD playing in background, allow students to draw using the materials they have collected.
Assessment: (Discussion) With the lights lowered and the students back at their desks, allow them time to look at their efforts. What are the repeated themes in the paintings? Why are these themes repeated? Why would pre-historic people create cave paintings? Each student must offer in discussion, at least one thing they learned about the pre-historic people. Each student must have created at least one sketch for the cave walls. Each student must have created at least one illustration on the cave wall.
Useful Internet Resource:
* A Virtual Tour of Cave Paintings
http://www.harcourtschool.com/activity/cavepaintings/cavepaintings.html
Other References: