Activities
Activity 1
Duration: 4-5 Days
Lesson 1: Students will learn about Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphs through the book Hieroglyphs by Joyce Milton. They will engage in “I see, I think, I wonder” discussion. This will help start a dialogue about how words can be a form of art and in this case in picture form. They will learn that words and pictures can work together instead of in separation.
Lesson 2: Students, with adult assistance, will create stone tablets. They will be writing their name in Latin alphabet on one side and their name in hieroglyphs on the other. This can be done by either buying self hardening clay or do it yourself sand dough or salt dough.
Lesson 3: Students will have a reference sheet in which each hieroglyphic symbol represents a letter in the alphabet. They will then create their names on the dough using a popsicle stick based on that symbol/alphabet sheet on papyrus paper in cartouche form. Students will do a gallery walk.
Activity 2
Duration: 4 days
Lesson 1: The concept that words are a form of art and that pictures and words work together continues through doing a picture walk and an interactive read aloud called The Pet Dragon: A Story about Adventure, Friendship, and Chinese Characters using the “I see, I think, I wonder” discussion method.
Lesson 2: Students will be given a Chinese character in a clear folder slip. There, they will practice creating a pictograph using that Chinese character using a white board marker and eraser. Once they are ready, they will transfer what they practiced on the clear folder slip onto a medium length vertical paper where they will once again create a pictograph for the Chinese word. They will then, with adult assistance, create a hanging scroll, a traditional way to display Chinese painting and calligraphy, for their art piece by rolling the top of the vertical paper around a suitable branch. You apply glue where it is needed. Then you tie one end of a string on each end of the branch to create a hanging string for the scroll.
Lesson 3: Students will do a gallery walk.
Activity 3
Duration: 5 Days
Lesson 1: The teacher will be doing a picture walk first and then an interactive read aloud on the book Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes focusing on appreciating individual uniqueness.
Lesson 2: Students will ask their parents the origin of their names for homework.
Lesson 3: Mini lesson on what and how to create an acrostic poem. This will include creating a class anchor chart of adjective students can use and refer to later.
Lesson 4: Students will create a first draft of their acrostic poem and I will be conferring with students that may need more support.
Lesson 5: Students who are ready will be given a paper with their names in illuminated letters. They will create an acrostic poem using 3 adjectives that are on the anchor chart or other adjectives they can think of. After, they will color in the illuminated letters
Activity 4
Duration: 7 days
Lesson 1: The teacher will be doing a picture walk first and then an interactive read aloud on the book Families Around the World by Margriet Ruurs. To create a safe space we will be focusing on how families can look different and all types of families are beautiful.
Lesson 2: Students will be put into a group of 4. Each student in the group will be responsible for creating one type of brush. This will put emphasis on how the medium used to write for Chinese, Hieroglyphic, and Latin alphabet were very important to get that effect the writer/artist wanted. Lesson 3: They will use the brushes to write in Latin alphabet for their family portrait labels.
Lesson 4: The teacher will be doing a mini-lesson on sounding out words for labeling.
Lesson 5: The students will create a family tree. The students will be drawing each of the family members on a piece of circle paper and they will label who that family member is using the preferred brush. The students will confer with students that need more support with labeling.
Lesson 6: Students will glue those circles onto the construction paper with a tree trunk to create a family tree.
Lesson 7: The teacher will do a mini lesson on sounding out words to write sentences about their family on sentence stripes to go with their family tree. The teacher will also confer throughout the writing days to focus on labeling or extending the sentence depending on where the students are.
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