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Lesson Plans


Re: African Art Unit

[ Thread ][ Subject ][ Author ][ Date ]
lindacharlie (lindacharlie)
Mon, 21 Sep 1998 23:36:32 -0500

Sheri A. Woodard wrote:
>
> Hi
> I am pulling all my resources and putting together an African Art unit
> for my 6th grade students. I have done masks and kente cloths in the
> past. I would like to try inspiring the students to create their own
> amulets. I was thinking of assigning the students to make small mask
> amulets out of copper tooling and mixed media.
> Do you have any neat ways to do this?...or do you have a more
> exciting option? Please let me know what you have done.
> Thanks in advance.
> Sheri Woodard
> swoodard.us

Have you ever tried paper clay? I have seen some beautiful amulet-size
masks made of this. Some had holes for stringing and others had pin
backs. The clay is on the expensive side but affordable for small
projects. You can get a great price on the clay from Tony Cheng in
Farmington Hills, MI - he is a distributor of the product. If you can't
get his phone number from Information, write back and I'll see if I can
find it.

Another idea I've done is to have students research different African
peoples - there are hundreds!! - and create puppets with authentic
costumes. Students write a short dramatic pieces for their puppets and
perform them in groups. I use this lesson cooperatively with the
classroom teacher who does a lot of the research/writing and we do the
puppet making in art. The children's picture book "Ashanti to Zulu:
African Traditions" by Margaret Musgrove is an excellent resource for
this project as is "Who's in Rabbit's House" by Verna Aardema. (These
are young children's books, but great visual resources.)

Linda
Cleveland Elem
Livonia MI
lindacharlie