3rd grade native american petroglyphs

Petroglyph- a carving or line drawing on rock (especially one made by prehistoric people)
Pictograph- (also called pictogram or pictogramme) is a pictorial representation of an object. Earliest examples of pictographs include ancient or prehistoric drawings or paintings found on rock walls.

3rd grade studied the early settlers of America, so I immediately thought the Anasazi or ancient Indian tribes. I had seen a variation of this lesson for kindergarten but never understood how the art teacher pulled off having kindergarten students create such complex stencils (she didn't say in the lesson that she had pre-made them). So I decided to try this lesson with my 3rd graders. I had done a variation of the lesson before with a mixed age grouping of children and instead of painting the stencils on, as I had my students do this time, I had them cut out the stencils and glue them on the paper, the results of which I wasn't too crazy about. had each student create a symbol, something that represented them, and demonstrated how to cut out things from the center by folding and 'nipping' the inside first. Some students picked it up right away and some had a hard time with it. All in all the lesson went well. I found a few good resources for teaching Native American rock art, here are some links below:

This is a good contemporary artist link for the lesson:
www.artsconnected.org/artsnetmn/identity/white.html


'Talking Rocks' A lesson plan by Nancy Ratzloff- a great resource for introduction activities for the lesson (you can also link to this site from the link above)

http://www.artsconnected.org/artsnetmn/identity/talking_rocks/ratzlesson.html

The original lesson idea:

www.princetonol.com/groups/iad/lessons/elem/maryj-rock.htm