September is a busy month at ALBA school. My art students from K4-5th grade have been very busy creating wearable art as we learn about the Incas, Mayas, Aztecs, and Tainos from Pre-Colombian times. This is the first art unit of the year and it culminates in a parade and performance as well as games, make and take tables, and exhibition tables that the students make in their classes. The whole school collaborates together to put on a fantastic event that many of our parents come and enjoy. This event is also very special because ALBA is a bilingual, public, teacher-lead charter school with a 99% Latino population of students. Our mission is to help students achieve proficiency in both Spanish and English while retaining Hispanic heritage and cultural traditions. Fine Arts at ALBA is a very integrative program that relies on building curriculum through teacher and classroom collaboration.
For this unit on wearable art, I researched many sources for images of traditional Inca, Aztec, Taino, and Maya clothing. I made tagboard and cardboard templates for many of the headdresses, shields and necklaces. Students could then trace the templates and create their own wearable art. A large part of this unit for all students is practice with pattern making and using simple shapes and colors for overall visual composition of their wearable art. I was also able to tie in some standards from social studies and Language Arts classes to make this a meaningful art unit.
K4 and 3rd graders study the Aztecs in their classrooms and in art as they made headdresses and Aztec warrior shields. In K4 we are still learning how to use scissors and glue and practice coloring skills, so thanks to ALBA parents, some of our supplies were ready made for such little hands. The two classes of 3rd graders were represented by owls and jaguars which the teachers chose to represent them as a tribal group. Students cut their own paper feathers and constructed wearable shields from tagboard, construction paper and paint. They also created patterns for their headdresses.
K3 and 2nd graders learned about the Tainos, the indigenous group of people from Puerto Rico and nearby islands that Christopher Columbus first encountered. It is difficult to find historical information on the Tainos, but their best known legacy is the petroglyphs they carved into and drew on rocks. My 2nd graders made aprons or loin cloths, which was the traditional clothing for both men and women in a tropical climate. The aprons included a petroglyph design and pattern created on paper with oil pastels. I showed students how they could mix colors and smudge the oil pastels together to make their designs look older and have more texture. We also made beads from model magic clay so the students could carve a petroglyph into the clay. Using toothpicks we also made holes in the beads and put them onto brown string to create necklaces as Tainos made jewelry from natural materials.
1st and 5th grade students studied the Inca Empire. 5th graders made headdresses and gold necklaces and 1st graders made gold headdresses and belts. Students learned about Machu Picchu, the lost city of the Inca and how important llamas are for the Inca Empire. Besides wearable art, 1st and 5th graders also made the llama projects from my last blog entry. Both groups also learned about how wool is made into yarn that is dyed and made into textiles. We saw some videos of how many craftsmen in Peru are still well known for their beautiful weavings and the colorful patterns of their clothing and textiles. 1st graders also performed an Inca dance to traditional pan flute music. 5th graders did their research too, the writing that accompanied the exhibition for the Inca table was impressive!
K5 and 4th grade students represented the Mayas for our Hispanic Heritage Celebration. K5 students created solar calendars by tracing circular templates, drawing a sun face and creating patterns around the sun. We learned that the Mayas developed the most accurate and complex calendars of ancient cultures. We used the solar calendars as a big necklace and part of the Maya costume for K5. Students used oil pastels and watercolor to create the solar calendar with warm and cool colors. They also made a construction paper headdress complete with feathers and a pattern. 4th grade students created the biggest headdresses and made the most feathers out of all the groups. They were an impressive bunch at the end of the parade. They also created a Mayan collar that a priest or scholar would have worn. To decorate the collar, students needed to write their names using the Mayan syllabary.
The Hispanic Heritage Celebration was fun for all! Parents and teachers alike were impressed by how well all of our learning experiences came together this year for our first big event. I am so proud of all the hard work and learning my students engaged in to make this event such a success. As it is now October, we are beginning to learn about Los Dias de los Muertos or Days of the Dead. I will be sharing project ideas in my next blog.