During their unit on Australia, Kinders learned about a variety of Australian animals and their habitats. For any teacher, this is a great opportunity to link art and social studies together.
Materials required:
- small, square shaped sponges
- Q tips
- laminated animal templates
- blu tac
- paint in shades of brown & earth tones
- A3 black cardstock
- A3 beige coloured construction paper
Duration: 1 class of 80 minutes
1. I started off the lesson by questioning students about what they already knew about Australia. Then I briefly explained to them that the local people of Australia create a special kind of art called Aboriginal art. I showed them many visual examples of Aboriginal paintings and got them to pick out the similarities between them all. They came up with the intended answers such as they all have dots, patterns, animals & signs.
2. Next, I gave them all a demonstration. Take piece of A3 and tear off any two sides. Some students might struggle with this but the idea here is just to give the overall painting a more rugged, handmade look. the more uneven the tearing, the better. Now take some blu tac and stick down the laminated animal template on the paper. I had already stuck small balls of blu tac on each template which saved time in the classroom. Of course students are free to choose where they want to stick it and in which direction.
3. Dip a sponge into brown paint and stamp around the template. Keep the stamping lighter as you move out toward the edges.
4. Carefully remove the template off the paper (make sure your hands are clean for this!). With a Q-tip, make dots in various colours inside the animal. I kept out orange, white, red and ochre.
5. Stick onto black cardstock.
Extension: If I had more time, I would have liked the students to include signs and symbols in their work; and the high abilities could also write a story about their animals and use symbols to visually depict it. Perhaps this could be done if it was a higher grade level?
Materials required:
- small, square shaped sponges
- Q tips
- laminated animal templates
- blu tac
- paint in shades of brown & earth tones
- A3 black cardstock
- A3 beige coloured construction paper
Duration: 1 class of 80 minutes
1. I started off the lesson by questioning students about what they already knew about Australia. Then I briefly explained to them that the local people of Australia create a special kind of art called Aboriginal art. I showed them many visual examples of Aboriginal paintings and got them to pick out the similarities between them all. They came up with the intended answers such as they all have dots, patterns, animals & signs.
2. Next, I gave them all a demonstration. Take piece of A3 and tear off any two sides. Some students might struggle with this but the idea here is just to give the overall painting a more rugged, handmade look. the more uneven the tearing, the better. Now take some blu tac and stick down the laminated animal template on the paper. I had already stuck small balls of blu tac on each template which saved time in the classroom. Of course students are free to choose where they want to stick it and in which direction.
3. Dip a sponge into brown paint and stamp around the template. Keep the stamping lighter as you move out toward the edges.
4. Carefully remove the template off the paper (make sure your hands are clean for this!). With a Q-tip, make dots in various colours inside the animal. I kept out orange, white, red and ochre.
5. Stick onto black cardstock.
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| Two examples of the finished pieces |
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| Some symbols that students could work from |
How has your Aboriginal art project turned out?
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