First grade: Human Family Handprint Mural

Posted by: TeachingArtontheCheap on: April 27, 2010

• In: Kindergarten/First Grade | Lesson Plans | Social studies related | Uncategorized
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A closeup of some of the hand designs students and teachers contributed. Color in evenly and thickly for the best results!

The finished handprint mural! What a good rescued find – the globe appliqué was too cute to leave in the trash.

Creative Reuse Lesson Plan         First Grade: Families

Written by Keri Piehl for SCRAP /Whitman ES 2009-10

Hand Print Mural

Cost per student: $.10 (not including the use of an iron)

Materials: Iron, fabric (I found a giant appliquéd globe on a sheet in the trash), fabric crayons, paper, markers, newspaper or towel to iron on top of.

Students will create an individual design to contribute to the whole group mural

Elements of art: shape, space

Vocabulary: mural, family, humankind

1. We looked at a book showing different families around the world; we talked about that everyone is part of a human family called human kind. I tied this in to the recent news of the earthquake in Haiti – when something hurts people anywhere in the world, other people try and help them. We talked about how people in different countries helped people who were hurting in Haiti and other places. We also talked about adoption and how families might have kids they adopted from other countries; any humans put together can make a new family anywhere.

2. I talked about how a mural is often an art piece where many people can work together to put their art into one place to show how a community is connected. I showed them the large blank mural base with the globe and suggested they all make a design to add to it.

3. For a design that looked somewhat unified, I had all kids trace their hands with a pencil and then had them go over the line with a fabric crayon. I told them they could color and design their hand shape any way they liked but it could not have letters or numbers (since they would be backwards once they get ironed to the fabric). Coloring it in thickly looks best.

4. As kids finished, I invited them over to the carpet area, where I had the iron plugged in and a thick section of newspaper to put under the fabric. Put the drawing colored side down on the fabric, put another piece of paper on top, and iron on high with no steam. Try not to move the paper or the design will look blurry.

5. I like to let the kid peel the paper back to reveal the transferred design after I move the iron out of reach. Have them use a marker to sign their name near their design if you’d like. I had all 3 third grade classes, plus the teachers, add to the mural. They can take their design on paper home.

Tags: color, families, line, shape