Chalk and String Identity Map

SCHOOL PROGRAM LESSON PLAN – K to 3

Chalk and String Identity Map

Final Project Description: 

A sheet of paper with multicoloured, radiating chalk lines coming from the centre in a circle (see attached image). A self portrait will be drawn on a circular piece of paper and pasted in the centre. Drawings over top of the chalk lines will complete the finished image. 

Description:

Students will create an “identity map” that connects a drawing of themselves to four other things they influence – family, friends, animals and nature/place. Using chalk and string, they will create radiating lines that connect their self portrait to these other elements. 

Theory:

Students will (taken from the BC Curriculum PLOs):

-use imagination, observation, and stories to create images

-create images that feature line, colour and the principle of pattern

-create 2D images that represent ideas and concepts

-respond to artworks – Holly Ward’s Persistence of Vision

-create images using the image-development strategy of repetition

-use an unconventional application technique to draw with (snapping string)

Creation & Analysis:

Students will consider their relationship to other people close to them (family and friends) who they influence and natural elements (animals, pets, nature, specific remembered and/or favourite places). Connections radiate outward from their created image of themselves in the centre. The purpose of this activity is to get kids to consider how they are part of other systems – family, friendships, ecological and geographic systems. Through the process students should be able to visually see how they are part of larger communities and contexts, while asserting their preferences for who and what to draw in relation to what is important to them. They will also gain dexterity skills and manipulate drawing materials in unconventional ways, applying chalk in a new method. 

Duration:

45 minutes in the studio – 15 mins on chalk lines, 10 mins on self portrait, 15 mins on drawing in the margins, 5 mins for wrap up and possible discussion or look at other’s work to end class. 

Materials:

• Boards

• Paper

• Chalk/pastel

• Thumbtacks

• String

• Construction paper

• Markers, pens, pencils

• Glue

• Hairspray or fixative

• Painter’s tape

Look & Discuss:

-Discuss Holly Ward’s piece. Remind them that the symbols she uses on the floor are like a map. Explain that we’re going to make a map, but instead of it showing our location like a typical map, we’ll be making a personal map that shows people and places close to us. (Refer to notes on Holly’s piece from the School Tour document). 

-HAVE STUDENTS PUT THEIR NAMES ON THEIR PAPERS! This is important. 

-Begin by explaining that all maps need a starting point. Think of the thumbtack in the centre of your board/paper as the starting point for our map. We’ll create lines (like roads) that will connect to things and people we’ll be drawing in later. Right now we want to put the “roads” on our map. The roads will be made by rubbing our strings with soft pastel/chalk and repeatedly snapping them down onto the paper. This will get messy. The chalk dust will create a line on the page. Different colours can be used and get students to move the string around in a circle to make a starburst. They’ll need some help to master the technique, but will quickly get into applying lines. Remind them that chalk smears and they’ll have to be careful not to smear their roads. (Fingerprints are ok, but try and avoid them).

-Once most students have built up a good starburst with lots of lines, start removing their boards to spray them with hairspray in a designated spot. Explain that you need to be careful when spraying things as we don’t want to inhale sprays. Keep them off to the side. Hand out construction paper circles, markers and other drawing materials. Explain that in addition to roads, we need to show our place on our map. We need to do this by drawing ourselves on the circle. Clear away the pastels.

-Have students draw a simple image of themselves on construction paper circles with markers and pencil. Have them paste their portrait in the centre of their boards (remove the thumbtacks/string) – this is why having the boards with names on is important. 

-There should be a border around the outside edges of their papers where the string circle didn’t reach. Have students fill this area with drawings of family, friends, pets, neighbors, favourite places, things they enjoy in nature like trees and lakes and animals they’ve encountered in parks, camping, other places. Do a quick brainstorming session for things that they are connected to and explain that the last part of the map are like ‘destinations’ close to us – a friend’s house, a playground nearby, parents and siblings, buildings like school, etc that are full of people and things that they interact with. Explain that this will finish our map, outlining a journey from ourselves as the starting point in the middle, out to other things we influence. 

Prep:

-Tape paper to boards with painter’s tape. Put a thumbtack firmly into the board in the centre of the page. Use a hammer if you need to get it in all the way. Tie a string to the thumbtack, a slipknot is probably best so the string can move all the way around in a circle easily. The string should be just long enough to make a good circle, but leave a decent margin around the edges of the paper so kids can draw other things in here. 

-Have chalk and pastels ready 

-Organize a spray station away from the main teaching area for spraying paper with fixative. You can do this outside the classroom too, in the hall. Wherever you set it up, have folding tables out to put the works on – AGAIN, MAKE SURE KIDS HAVE PUT THEIR NAMES ON THEIR WORK FIRST THING.

-Cut construction paper circles using a template (for the self portrait drawing). 

-Prep drawing materials in containers to share

Take it further:

Ask students to look at each other’s work at the end of class to see how other students approached their project. Suggest that maps can be useful tools for sketching relationships to things in addition to helping us locate where we are physically. Maps can be made for anything to show where we are and where we might travel to. What else could be represented as a map? A map of your room at home, a map into your dreams and imagination, a map of great places to play outside, a map of people you frequently see, etc.