Concept / Topic To Teach: Stereotypes may not be correct, what we see in movies and on TV isn’t always the way life really was/is.

Standards Addressed: Students will understand the place of art in history

General Goal(s): Students will gain information about the people of the Stone Age, and create a work of art, drawing from their new knowledge.

Specific Objectives: The Learner Will explore the life of a stone age Homo Sapien, visualize that they have gone back in time, and create a drawing in the style of the cave paintings found in Lascaux, France.

Required Materials: roll(s) of Brown Craft Paper

          Charcoal

Set-Up: Create a cave in the room by turning the tables on their sides and facing the tops of the tables in toward each other, touching at the edges to create an enclosed cave. Crumple Brown Craft paper slightly to resemble rough rock walls and cover the table tops to create the walls of the cave. Print or Photocopy images from the caves in Lascaux, and stick them randomly around the cave walls. You may create a “fire” out of a flashlight and tissue paper. Intercept students before they enter the room.

Anticipatory Set (Lead-In): “We are entering a sacred cave, we must be very quiet – sit in a circle inside the cave and close your eyes” – students may open their eyes when it is time for discussion. “What are some of your ideas about people who lived in the Stone Age? What did they look like? What did they wear? What did they do?” Read the book – The Cave Painter of Lascaux

Step-By-Step Procedures:

          1) Look at the pictures stuck on the walls of the cave. Discuss the ways that people made pictures in the stone age – they didn’t have tubes of paint and brushes to buy! Imagine that the stick of charcoal is a stick from yesterday’s fire that has cooled, and we are using the charred wood to draw.

          2) Close your eyes once again – and we will go back in time. “It has been a long time since we have been on a hunt, and our family is getting very hungry. We have entered our sacred cave, to ask the spirits to help us to catch some large animals to feed us, and to provide our clothes. By drawing the animals we will hunt on the walls of our sacred cave, we will have power. We will be as fast as the deer, as strong as the bear and the mighty buffalo. Our drawings are as sacred and as special as this cave.

          3) Students may open their eyes and begin to draw on the walls of the cave.

Closure (Reflect Anticipatory Set): “Why would the drawings that you have just done be sacred?” “What is different about Stone-age people than you had originally thought?”

Assessment Based On Objectives: Each student must offer in discussion at least one thing about the stone age people that was different than they thought. Each student must create a drawing of at least one animal on the cave walls.

Adaptations (For Students With Learning Disabilities): assess the level of disability, sit near students who need additional assistance, Provide larger, easily managable drawing tools for students who have difficulty with fine motor skills.

Extensions (For Gifted Students): Students may draw with as much detail, and draw as many animals as they have time for.

Possible Connections To Other Subjects:

          Social Sciences: The study of the Stone Age – how homo sapiens of the Stone Age lived

          Earth Sciences: The study of the Stone Age – the finding, excavating, and dating of tools, artifacts, etc.

          Language Arts: Write a story from the point of view of a Stone Age person to go along with an image from Lascaux – contrast communicating with pictures versus communicating with words.

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Christy Zoulek

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