Lesson based on: FIRST PAINTER By Kathryn Lasky Paintings by Rocco Baviera Art Concept: Value Reading Strategy: Inference, Inferring By Carolyn Wilhelm Graphics licensed through: Lesson plan Standards Inferring Q and a this document has a long list of questions and answers Some pictures are from Wikipedia Commons

Objectives for this lesson: 1.Introduce art concept: VALUE (the lightness and darkness of a color) Paint, part 1 2.Consider specific words, phrases, and sentences using the reading strategy comprehension skill of inference. 3.Create art pieces using value. Students will apprentice themselves to the art work in the gook FIRST PAINTER by Kathryn Lasky, Paintings by Rocco Baviera. Students will create interpretations to enrich and deepen their experience in a text. ·MN.I.C. Reading and Literature: Comprehension: The student will actively engage in the reading process and use a variety of comprehension strategies to understand the meaning of texts that have been read or listened to. ·I.C.6. Make simple inferences and draw and support conclusions. ·MN.I.B. Reading and Literature: Vocabulary Expansion: The student will use a variety of strategies to develop and expand reading, listening and speaking vocabularies. ·I.C.8. Write or draw a response that shows comprehension of a story that has been read. ·MN.I.D. Reading and Literature: Literature: The student will actively engage in the reading process and read, understand, respond to and appreciate a wide variety of fiction, poetic and non-fiction texts. ·I.D.1. Read from and listen to texts representing a variety of genres (such as poetry, folk tales, drama, fantasy, realistic fiction, informational and biographical texts) from America, as well as from other countries. ·I.B.4. Use context to predict and infer word meanings. Students read a wide range of literature from many periods in many genres to build an understanding of the many dimensions (e.g., philosophical, ethical, aesthetic) of human experience. IRA/NCTE Standards for the English Language Arts Minnesota Standards:

A journey through time book: The Cave Painter of Lascaux This book would be a nice addition to this lesson.

If you didn't know anything about art, can you imagine wiggling into a cave and getting the idea to paint on the walls? Wonder... Imagine you were one of the first people living on earth when nature was all there was; no buildings, no stores, no pencils, no paints, no furniture.

The cave was discovered on 12 September 1940 by four teenagers: Marcel Ravidat, Jacques Marsal, Georges Agnel, and Simon Coencas, as well as Ravidat's dog, Robot. The cave was closed to the public in 1963 in order to preserve the art. After the cave was closed, the paintings were restored to their original state, and are now monitored on a daily basis. Rooms in the cave include: The Great Hall of the Bulls The Lateral Passage Shaft of the Dead Man Chamber of Engravings Painted Gallery Chamber of Felines Photos and information from the Wikipedia Creative Commons The Cave of Lascaux

The cave contains nearly 2,000 figures. Notably, the paintings contain no images of the surrounding landscape or the vegetation of the time. Over 900 can be identified as animals. There are also many geometric figures. Of the animals, equines predominate, with 364 images. There are 90 paintings of stags. Also represented are cattle and bison. A smattering of other images include seven felines, a bird, a bear, a rhinoceros, and a human. Among the most famous images are four huge, black bulls or aurochs in the Hall of the Bulls. There are no images of reindeer, even though that was the principal source of food for the artists.

Which of these horses might have been painted on cave walls in prehistoric times? When you answer, please explain how you know! THINK-PAIR-SHARE Do any of these pictures seem right?

Think-Pair-Share: Do you see anything wrong with this picture?

Online resources: EdSitement, lesson plan from the National Endowment for the Humanities: Cave Art: Discovering Prehistoric Humans through Pictures prehistoric-humans-through-pictures The Cave of Lascaux The Cave of Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc Emuseum of Minnesota State University Mankato From the home page, click on sections titled "Prehistory" and "Archaeology" on the right-side menu. A PBS podcast of going inside caves for kids Wikipedia Article on the Cave of Lascaux Wikipedia article with cave art

Think-Pair-Share: Why do you think the art may tell? From the National Geographic Society's Book, PAINTERS OF THE CAVE: "One cave has more horses than any other animal; yet bones at the nearby campsite show that the people ate mostly reindeer. At another cave, the paintings show horses and mammoths; again, bones tell of reindeer." Why do you think there are there no reindeer paintings on the cave walls?

VALUE is an art concept. Lightness (sometimes value) is a property of a color, or a dimension of a color space, that is defined in a way to reflect the subjective brightness perception of a color for humans along a lightness-darkness axis. A color's lightness also corresponds to its amplitude. Try using just a few shades of one or two colors and create your own cave art. Sign it with your hand or thumb print!

Attachments INFERRING QUESTIONS for First Painter.doc firstpainterstandards.doc Lesson Plan First Painter.doc