How We Express Ourselves

At the end of the last semester, and the beginning of this semester, students explored the concept of art changing throughout history in How We Express Ourselves. 

Here is a brief over view of what we did.

Central Idea: The arts record and reflect changes in society throughout history.

Function: How are reflects what is important to society

Change: Why and how art evolves over time

Form: Tools, materials and perspectives used to create art  

Building a Timeline 

From cavemen to modern artists, we looked at several periods in history, across several different cultures, and tracked the art they made! We built a giant timeline of art on our walls to help us better understand and see how art has changed so much!

 Making Art

Students spent a lot of time making art similar to what we were learning about in UOI. Some of this was done in UOI class, like the paint that we made back in December. And some of it was done  in art class! 

These are examples of traditional masks from pre-history. What's prehistory you wonder? Ask a grade 4 students!

 

 

Discussing and Deciding

Of course a normal part of all UOI units is to discuss with our friends what we are learning about, and write down our ideas in a variety of ways!

 

 Presentations and Summatives

Finally, once the unit is done, we created a presentation that mimicked what we did in class. Each of us choose a culture and 5 examples of art from that culture over history. Then we shared with teachers from the school about how the changing art reflects the changing societies. It was scary to talk to so many adults, but really showed us how much we had learned!