You know that moment just before you fall asleep? When you’re done with the day and you might be sorting through things or going over new thoughts? Last night I started to think of how I might approach a lesson with my new grade nine classes next week.
Prehistoric art is covered very briefly with my grade nine classes. I’ve covered the material in several ways over the years. Everything from text reading to recording a day’s activities with cave-cartoons. How can I make this a bit more interesting for my students?
Our high school serves several communities that are separated not only by distance but also by culture and socio-economic factors. However, there are some traditions that are fairly common within the majority of families that live North of Superior. Hunting and fishing is so common here that if you don’t have experience with either one, you might find yourself out of the loop. Fortunately for me, I was brought up on pickerel, moose meat, deer, partridge and even the odd bear. My parents owned a trap line for a number of years and memories of my Father skinning the hides of animals still makes me smile. These experiences are shared by many of my students as well. Why not use these commonalities to learn something new?
My plan: talk about hunting and fishing with my class. So often, stories are the best way to make new friends and discover just how alike you truly are. New students might appreciate knowing a bit more about their classmates and my hope is that they will work together as they explore cave art. After talking about hunting and fishing, we’ll experiment with charcoal and conte on large pieces of paper. We’ll draw moose, deer, partridge… and maybe even a few hunters. Then we’ll look at cave paintings that have been found in Europe. Hopefully students will remember the rock paintings around the region and we can make connections between prehistory and their history.
I’ll let you know how it goes…
Northern Art Teacher 