PREHISTORY- Cave Art Painting 6th grade

In 6th grade the curriculum is based on the Ancient Civilizations like Sumer, Egypt, India, etc...

First I started off with PREHISTORY. For this unit I created slideshows and to wrap it up, I came up with an activity.

The activity consisted of making Cave Art painting and Cuneiform writing in "clay tablets".

The materials  we used were:

-5 mts. of Kraft paper

- brown, yellow, orange and black acrylic paint.

- 2 clay bars  (yellow, or orange)

- 1 wooden sticks (pencil like)

I divided the class in 2 groups, Each group worked with a specific activity.

1.-The first activity was Cave art painting. So I basically gave them an example of a cave art painting and told them to create a drawing using their fingers and hands ( no paint brushes).

2.- The second activity was Cuneiform writing. 

Students used their clay bars and shaped them into a square or rectangle figure, then they pressed their wooden stick (with the sharp end) to write their own names using the cuneiform alphabet!

At the end I used their paintings to decorate my so lonely bulletin board!!!!!

I found this activities engaging, since they had fun and used their previous knowledge for this session.

Please comment and feel free to use this ideas with your classroom!

Cheers,

Gina