BC New Curriculum First Peoples Art: Easy Art

Looking for some BC New Curriculum lessons that cover First Nations objectives?

Here is an easy, First Nations art project that is cross-curricular and covers four different objectives! Students will learn about the First Nations culture, a feature artist, Clarence Mills, and they will create a pop-out bear art project!

This project is CROSS-CURRICULAR!!  It covers multiple objectives.

Science: Recognize First Peoples stories (including oral and written narratives), songs, and art, as ways to share knowledge.

Language Arts: Show awareness of how story in First Peoples cultures connects people to family and community - specifically teaching life knowledge through animal observations.

Art: To study traditional and contemporary Aboriginal arts and arts-making processes.

Application, Technology and Design: Ideating, making and sharing a way to make the bear image pop out of the plate.

Below is a beautiful book to read that helps to tie the lesson together:

Student will learn about the artist who created the graphic we will use for the art project: Clarence Mills!

Clarence is a famous for his totem poles.  There are some great videos of him work below!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmtUtBAyodA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WukOPgq1hA

Then, students create their own pop-out art!  They have to use their imagination and design skills to create a way for the image to pop out of the paper plate.  Voila!  ADST!!

You will need: 6" paper plates, felt markers, glue and paper to make the image pop-out!

From Ordinary to Inquiry: Bear Unit Make-over

Ok - so I have putting a lot of thought into inquiry and how to make it a part of my classroom.  I know a lot of teachers are panicking about how to do all this on an already tight schedule.

As a group, teachers are already such amazing professionals and we have already created some amazing units.  Don't reinvent the wheel!  Take what you already have and add a little inquiry!!!  Below are some steps I used to make-over my Bear Unit to an Inquiry-Based Bear unit.  Let me know what you think!  NOTE: You must follow this blog in order to post a comment.

It is so cool to see inquiry enriching your lessons and making them more relevant to students.  I can see how excited they get when they become involved in their learning!  Already, the topic of survival is something they can understand!

 The projects show below were projects I was ALREADY doing with my class!!  I just needed to CONNECT them to the SURVIVAL theme!

You can purchase my updated Bear Unit by clicking on any of the pictures above!  If you own it already, be sure to go and redownload!!  

Panda Bears, Polar Bears, and Grizzly Bears, Oh my!

Oh my!!!  We have been having a wonderful week in my little class.  They made me laugh so hard today!!  Love their personalities!  I am so grateful for a less busy week without interruptions.  My Smart Board is still on the fritz - that is one thing I could ask for - no more technology problems - it works for about 10 minutes and then shuts off.  To make matters worse my mouse started behaving strangely...  It is amazing how much we rely on technology!

We started off the week with a little discussion of the basic needs of bears!  Click on below for a little freebie!

Then, we did a little compare and contrast between grizzly and polar bears.  Love that critical thinking!

Here is an example of what one of my little tykes wrote!

So as we continue our study of bears we made our Polar Bear tear art today.  it is always SO cute to see the look of terror when they hear they have to tear and not cut!!!  What do you MEAN!! I don't use SCISSORS!!!  She has LOST her mind!!!   It's art my friends!!!  Crazy, creative art like these bears always makes me laugh!

Check out the detail on this cute bear!

This bear is sitting on his tush although I am told he is actually standing and growling:) 

At first glance, one would think this bear was flying.  I'm told this bear is about to attack a human, complete with sound effects!  Oh my!!  LOL!

Introducing the poised and thoughtful bear.  You need seal?  Oh, just over here good sir!

Levitation bears are so cute and there is always more than one:)

Bear on the edge!!

Bear on the edge of glory!

 This art project is super easy.  All you need is blue construction paper, white computer paper, and glue!  You may want to give them each a cotton ball to add a little fur:)  Have a beary good week!!!

Fun Beginning of the Year Primary Activities: Bring Your Stuffy To School!!

Some of you may be heading back to school soon!  I thought I would share one of my kiddies absolute FAVOURITE activities!  I am thinking of doing this at the beginning of the year just to really get the excitement started!!!  It is always a ton of fun!!!  Click on the preview below for your copy!

Hope things are going well with your classroom set up!  I am totally inspired by all of your ideas!