Monday, February 10, 2014

2010: Hawaiian Canoe Sculptures, Social Studies Integrated

Throughout this 4th grade project we studied paintings of canoes by Hawaiian historical artist Herb Kane. He is famous for dreaming to building a long-distance voyaging canoe. He shared his dream, and together with others, he built the canoe Hokulea and brought long-distance sailing to modern Hawaii. (Forty years later, Hokulea is readying for a round-the-world sail using traditional navigation.) Kane was also an artist historian who depicted ancient Hawaii in exquisitely researched detail.  In Hawaii 4th grade Social Studies covers pre-contact Hawaii.  The books used by the students are full of his illustrations.  In that way, this project connected to the Social Studies curriculum of ancient Hawaii, as well as to the modern-day history of Hawaii, and to an inspirational Hawaiian artist the students were being exposed to without knowing.  

The project began with an introduction to the material, and practice making pinch pots out of clay.  For this project the hulls of the canoe would be modified pinch pots.  

While we would look Kane's illustrations at the beginning of the class, I also kept photocopies at all the tables so the students could continually model the shapes they saw.

There is nothing like the tactile experience of clay.  It took a lot of patience and practice for the students to get this medium to do what they wanted it to do.   

To complete the canoe the students cut out a crab-claw sail.  One side was painted to model native Hawaiian tapa cloth patterns.  

The other side was their chance to express the canoe's voyage as a painting..












The base was also a painting project.  We talked about analogous colors, and I asked them to paint the feel of the ocean. 




 For a longer description of why I am proud of a students' work from this project, click HERE.  
(I'm proud of all of these, really.)

For a sample lesson plan, click HERE.