Grade 5 (2016-17) – Ancient Civilisations

For the Ancient Civilisations unit, grade 5 looked at artifacts found from various ancient civilisations. First we looked at stone age cave paintings and pottery and students worked with charcoal and clay to make their own cave like drawings and simple pots. We then looked at the stories and depictions of everyday life shown on ancient Greek pottery. Students first imagined what could be drawn on a Greek style pot to communicate ideas about our own contemporary culture and current concerns. These were then made into a picture of a pot made by scratching away lines of black paint that had been painted on top of oil pastel colours. Finally each 5th grade class made their own work in clay, either a pot from a civilisation studied in class or as a sculpture or imagined relic from the civilisation that they had invented as part of their class project.