Prehistoric Art!!

Fourth and Fifth grade students are starting this year with the previously mentioned TIMELINE!! The timeline begins with the first form of art that we know, which is Prehistoric art or Cave art!! It is believed to be from about 32,000 years ago. They have found cave art on nearly every continent. During that time, they did not have crayons and markers like we have now, instead they would grind up stones and other natural materials to create their colors. Because they were only using natural materials they only had certain colors, including black, brown, red, white, and orange. Our students were able to use crayons and paint but only in those specific colors. We drew/painted on one large brown paper (per class) and crumpled it up and added black and brown shading to make it look more like a rock. Cave art animals were drawn much more realistic than the people. We drew our pets or favorite animals first, somewhat realistically but without a lot of details. Next we drew our families as stick figures. Lastly, we painted around our hands. This was very important in prehistoric art because the used their hand prints as signatures.

Also, we had fun creating our own cave art because we turned off the lights and used small lamps. Also, we taped the paper to the bottom of the table to show how some of the artists had to crawl in small spaces and paint on different types of surfaces.

After students were finished creating, myself and a few other (taller) teachers helped hang it in the hallway to have a "cave" in our school. SO AWESOME!!!!