Aborignal Bark Paintings

This project took much more time that I had planned for but the result was wonderful. The students learned about another country, culture and style of painting. Before class I had created a list of Australian animals. I included a few facts and a large picture of each animal.

I explained about the style Aboriginal people used for bark paintings, we discussed how this has been done for thousands of years and is still being done today. How they make their own paint and used sticks for brushes.

Than each student got to pick an animal from the list to be the subject of their bark painting.  As students stretched out their first copies I told them an Aboriginal story about how the fire was created. The next class as they painted I played a CD of an Aboriginal music. As a conclusion they did wrote a critique to go with their painting. I would absolutely do this project again.

Winter White-Burch

After seeing a project in http://www.artsandactivities.com/ I was inspired to try the Winter White-Burch Tree lesson. The children where really happy with there projects. I let them choose materials the they used in the background pastels, watercolor pencil or watercolor paint. A few students wanted to add layers of white paper to create the rolling snow drifts (so creative). I believe even young students can make choose what they materials they want to create with. I try not to limit the supplies.