Make Your Own Fish Kite

Learning Resource Type

Classroom Resource

Subject Area

Social Studies
Arts Education

Grade(s)

K, 1, 6

Overview

In this learning activity, students make their own Koinobori (fish kite). These kites were an important way of life for Japanese American children in internment camps during World War II.

Social Studies (2010) Grade(s): KG

SS10.K.6

Compare cultural similarities and differences in individuals, families, and communities.

UP:SS10.K.6

Vocabulary

  • compare
  • contrast
  • culture
  • celebration
  • tradition

Knowledge

Students know:
  • Individuals, families, and communities mark special days or events in a variety of ways.
  • Cultures are celebrated in different ways.
  • Cultures follow a variety of traditions.
  • Vocabulary: celebration, tradition, culture

Skills

Students are able to:
  • Identify celebrations and traditions within their culture.
  • Recognize celebrations and traditions of other cultures.

Understanding

Students understand that:
  • There are cultural similarities and differences among individuals, families, and communities.
Social Studies (2010) Grade(s): 1

SS10.1.11

Identify traditions and contributions of various cultures in the local community and state. (Alabama)

UP:SS10.1.11

Vocabulary

  • identify
  • traditions
  • contributions
  • cultures
  • Kwanzaa
  • Hanukkah
  • Christmas
  • Fourth of July
  • Cinco de Mayo
  • cultural foods

Knowledge

Students know:
  • Techniques for identifying traditions and contributions of various cultures in the community and Alabama.
  • How to compare cultural similarities and differences (for example, celebrations, food, traditions).
  • Vocabulary: traditions, contributions, cultures, Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, Christmas, Fourth of July, Cinco de Mayo, cultural foods

Skills

Students are able to:
  • Describe traditions of various cultures.
  • Describe contributions of various cultures.

Understanding

Students understand that:
  • There are traditions of various cultures in the local community and Alabama.
  • Various cultures have made important contributions to the local community and Alabama.
Social Studies (2010) Grade(s): 6

SS10.6.7

Identify changes on the American home front during World War II.

UP:SS10.6.7

Vocabulary

  • internment camp
  • rationing
  • Birmingham steel industry
  • Port of Mobile
  • Tuskegee Airmen
  • retooling

Knowledge

Students know:
  • The types of rationing that occurred in the United States during WWII.

Skills

Students are able to:
  • Cite evidence to support changes on the home front using primary and secondary sources.
  • Evaluate the contributions of significant individuals and/or groups in the US during WWII.

Understanding

Students understand that:
  • Many changes occurred in the United States during WWII.
Arts Education (2017) Grade(s): KG - Visual Arts

AE17.VA.K.1

Engage in self-directed exploration and imaginative play with art materials.

UP:AE17.VA.K.1

Vocabulary

  • Art
  • Artwork
  • Collaboratively
  • Collage
  • Cool colors
  • Warm colors
  • Elements of Art
    • Color
    • Line
    • Shape
  • Imaginative play
  • Play
  • Portfolio
  • Primary colors
  • Principles of design
    • Pattern
  • Printmaking

Essential Questions

EU: Creativity and innovative thinking are essential life skills that can be developed.
EQ: What conditions, attitudes, and behaviors support creativity and innovative thinking? What factors prevent or encourage people to take creative risks? How does collaboration expand the creative process?

Skills Examples

  • Create two-dimensional artworks using finger painting, watercolors, paper collage, and rubbings.
  • Create three-dimensional artworks using techniques such as rolling, folding, cutting, molding, pinching, and pulling clay.
  • Work with a partner to create works of art.
  • Working in small groups, use recycled materials to create artworks.
  • Explore the books Why is Blue Dog Blue? by G. Rodrigue and My Many Colored Days by Dr. Seuss to understand color meanings and moods.
  • Read the book Lines that Wiggle by Candace Whitman to explore different styles of line.
  • Safely use and share scissors, pencils, crayons, markers, glue, paints, paintbrushes, and clay.
  • Use symbols to help tell a personal or make-believe story.
  • Manipulate art media to create textures and patterns.
  • Identify and use organic and geometric shapes to create works of art.
  • Show respect for self and others while making and viewing art.
  • Use the primary colors (red, yellow, and blue) to create a free-style painting while singing the names of the colors.
  • Use patterns in designing colored stripes on the shirt of a person you know.
  • Collect found objects such as paper tubes, forks, and pieces of cardboard. Press them in shallow tempera paint, and stamp them on paper to show printmaking.
  • Create a T-chart that separates cool (blue, green, and purple) and warm (red, yellow, and orange) colors in different columns. Use the symbols of water waves for the cool column header and the sun for the warm column header.
  • Work with a partner to find colors, lines, and shapes in art and tell each other what you see.

Anchor Standards

Anchor Standard 1: Generate and conceptualize artistic ideas and work.
Arts Education (2017) Grade(s): 1 - Visual Arts

AE17.VA.1.2

Explore and experiment with a range of art materials.

UP:AE17.VA.1.2

Vocabulary

  • Complementary colors
  • Contrast
  • Curator
  • Elements of Art
    • Texture
  • Landscapes
  • Portrait
  • Positive/ negative space and shape
  • Principles of design
    • Repetition
    • Variety
  • Secondary colors
  • Still life
  • Technique
  • Venue

Essential Questions

EU: Artists and designers shape artistic investigations, following or breaking with traditions in pursuit of creative artmaking goals.
EQ: How does knowing the contexts, histories, and traditions of art forms help create works of art and design? Why do artists follow or break from established traditions? How do artists determine what resources and criteria are needed to formulate artistic investigations?

Skills Examples

  • Work with a partner or small group to create an artwork.
  • Use the book Perfect Square by Michael Hall to help "thinking outside the box" skills.
  • Create two-dimensional artworks using a variety of gadgets for printmaking.
  • Use paint media to create paintings of family portraits or a favorite memory.
  • Create three-dimensional artworks such as clay pinch pots or found-object sculptures.
  • View a step-by-step demonstration of an artistic technique.
  • Properly clean and store art materials.
  • Use Mouse Paint book by Helen Walsh to teach color mixing of primary to achieve secondary colors.
  • Create a painting inspired by Piet Mondrian's Broadway Boogie Woogie.
  • Create a "Pop Art" inspired artwork of positive and negative spaces and shapes by using colored paper cut-outs and gluing to different background squares.
  • Make a color wheel and identify the complimentary colors (red and green, blue and orange, yellow and purple).
  • Draw different forms in the school environment: cones in the gym, cubes in math center, and sphere used for a globe.
  • Create texture rubbings by placing paper over different surfaces and rubbing with a crayon or oil pastel. Use a rough brick wall, a smooth table, bumpy bubble wrap, or soft felt shapes.
  • Use repetition in art by looking at the designs on a shell or the stripes of a zebra for inspiration.

Anchor Standards

Anchor Standard 1: Generate and conceptualize artistic ideas and work.
Arts Education (2017) Grade(s): 6 - Visual Arts

AE17.VA.6.2

Formulate an artistic investigation and discovery of relevant content for creating art.

UP:AE17.VA.6.2

Vocabulary

  • Artistic ideas and work
  • Formal and conceptual vocabulary
  • Innovation
  • Investigation
  • Two-dimensional
  • Three-dimensional
  • Experimentation
  • Conservation
  • Craftsmanship
  • Linear perspective
  • Environmental responsibility
  • Prior knowledge
  • Museum
  • Gallery
  • Curator
  • Digital
  • Horizon Line
  • Brainstorming
  • Research

Essential Questions

EU: Artists and designers shape artistic investigations, following or breaking with traditions in pursuit of creative artmaking goals.
EQ: How does knowing the contexts, histories, and traditions of art forms help create works of art and design? Why do artists follow or break from established traditions? How do artists determine what resources and criteria are needed to formulate artistic investigations?

Skills Examples

  • Make, share and revise a list of ideas and preliminary sketches.
  • Use introductory skills, techniques, and elements of art to create a composition
  • Demonstrate drawing techniques, such as hatching, cross-hatching, shading, and stippling.
  • Create a group project about a current or world event.
  • Examine careers and identify and role - play various jobs of artists.
  • Research a subject or idea that has personal meaning to create a work of art.
  • Use the elements of visual arts to create an artwork that depicts emotions.
  • Use a variety of media and techniques in two and three dimensions to create imagery from experience, observation and imagination.
  • Demonstrate proper clean-up and/or disposal of equipment and materials.
  • Demonstrate art room safety and procedures.
  • Design an environmentally area for the school such as a library or other multi-use learning area.
  • Engage for the purpose of personal reflection and ongoing revision, in group critiques.
  • Reflect through journal writing artist intent.

Anchor Standards

Anchor Standard 1: Generate and conceptualize artistic ideas and work.
AE17.VA.K.1
AE17.VA.K.1b
AE17.VA.1.2
AE17.VA.1.2b
AE17.VA.6.2

CR Resource Type

Learning Activity

Resource Provider

Smithsonian

License Type

Custom
https://amhistory.si.edu/ourstory/pdf/internment/internment_kite.pdf

Custom License Type (URL)

https://www.si.edu/termsofuse/

Approved Date

Owner (Author)

mgsaboyd
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