Kindergarten Cave Art Helps with LINE and SHAPE

To begin the year with a study of line and shape, the Kindergarten students and I have gone back in history, or actually before history, to the oldest known artworks found to date - The Cave Artists. Who were they? Why did they paint what they painted and how? What did it mean for them to paint these animals and scenes inside a dark cave? Interesting questions to say the least. After a brief discussion on "LINE", we looked closer at the images of these cave art masterpieces and observed the different types of lines that were used in the paintings. Then, we learned about shapes that are made when a line comes back to its starting point and encloses an area. Of course, we then had to find the many different shapes that the cave artists used when painting their scenes. Well, enough talk.....it was time to take action.....SO we used a little bit of paint on manila paper and created a cave wall texture on which to paint our animals. The students were allowed to practice an animal that they wished to put on their personal cave wall, and then to paint it on top of the cave wall texture using black and brown tempera paint. WOW!! They really look awesome. This lesson proved to be a way to begin our understanding of these two Elements of Design - shape and line.