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

Making a rainstick

http://artsedge.kennedy-center.org/content/2391/

A lesson plan for grade 2 Visual Arts Education and English Language Arts

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In this lesson from ARTSEDGE, students learn about the history of the musical instrument called a rainstick. They experience rain and create a poem about their feelings and thoughts in the rain. Next, they read a story involving rainsticks, derived from a Native American tale. The class discusses the differences and similarities involving the use, appearance, and ceremonial aspects of the rainstick, then briefly discuss myths, folktales, and fables in relation to the story. Students then construct a rainstick to use as they recite their poem to the class.

North Carolina Curriculum Alignment

English Language Arts (2004)

Grade 1

  • Goal 2: The learner will develop and apply strategies and skills to comprehend text that is read, heard, and viewed.
    • Objective 2.02: Demonstrate familiarity with a variety of texts (storybooks, short chapter books, newspapers, telephone books, and everyday print such as signs and labels, poems, word plays using alliteration and rhyme, skits and short plays).
  • Goal 4: The learner will apply strategies and skills to create oral, written, and visual texts.
    • Objective 4.05: Write and/or participate in writing by using an author's model of language and extending the model (e.g., writing different ending for a story, composing an innovation of a poem).

Kindergarten

  • Goal 2: The learner will develop and apply strategies and skills to comprehend text that is read, heard, and viewed.
    • Objective 2.02: Demonstrate familiarity with a variety of types of books and selections (e.g., picture books, caption books, short informational texts, nursery rhymes, word plays/finger plays, puppet plays, reenactments of familiar stories).
  • Goal 4: The learner will apply strategies and skills to create oral, written, and visual texts.
    • Objective 4.06: Write and/or participate in writing behaviors by using authors' models of language.

Visual Arts Education (2001)

Grade 2

  • Goal 5: The learner will understand the visual arts in relation to history and cultures.
    • Objective 5.05: Begin to realize that there have been diverse cultures in the world and each culture has produced art.

Kindergarten

  • Goal 1: The learner will develop critical and creative thinking skills and perceptual awareness necessary for understanding and producing art.
  • Goal 5: The learner will understand the visual arts in relation to history and cultures.
    • Objective 5.01: Recognize that people in many times and places have made art.
    • Objective 5.02: Recognize that art is created to fulfill personal and/or societal needs or purposes.