LEARN NC

K–12 teaching and learning · from the UNC School of Education

Make a wampum belt

http://artsedge.kennedy-center.org/content/2117/

A lesson plan for Grade 5 Visual Arts Education and Social Studies

Provider: The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts

About this resource

Appropriate grades
5
Provider
The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts

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In this lesson from ARTSEDGE, students discuss Native American tribes and their culture, including the barter system of economics. They then use plastic straws and beads to make a wampum belt and write a short story or legend about the significance of the design on their belt. Sitting in a circle, they then talk about the belt and tell the story they created to go along with it. This part can be videotaped to be shown back to the students or to other classes.

North Carolina Curriculum Alignment

Visual Arts Education (2001)

Grade 5

  • Goal 2: The learner will develop skills necessary for understanding and applying media, techniques, and processes.
    • Objective 2.01: Use additional art media, techniques and processes, which may include:
      • Drawing - charcoal
      • Printmaking - easy cut, mixed media, collographs
      • 3-D - wire
      • Photography - pin-hole cameras
  • Goal 3: The learner will organize the components of a work into a cohesive whole through knowledge of organizational principles of design and art elements.
    • Objective 3.02: Recognize and apply the design principles used in composition.
  • Goal 5: The learner will understand the visual arts in relation to history and cultures.
    • Objective 5.01: Begin to recognize that art is the visual record of the history of mankind.
    • Objective 5.02: Identify selected characteristics that make art of a particular culture unique.

Social Studies (2003)

Grade 5

  • Goal 3: The learner will examine the roles various ethnic groups have played in the development of the United States and its neighboring countries.
    • Objective 3.01: Locate and describe people of diverse ethnic and religious cultures, past and present, in the United States.
    • Objective 3.03: Identify examples of cultural interaction within and among the regions of the United States.