LESSON ACTIVITY: NATIVE AMERICAN ARTS – CAVE PAINTINGS

Grades K -1

Overview – Cave paintings exist in many parts of the world and serve as some
of the earliest records of human artistic history. Students will learn a brief history
of cave paintings and create their own.

Learning Objectives –

• Students will learn texture vocabulary.

• Students will learn about the history of cave paintings and Native American
cave paintings in North America.
• Students will learn how Native Americans used cave paintings to communicate.
• Students will create their own cave painting to share a personal event or make a map of their own community.
• (Optional) - Students will create their own cave painting, using unconventional and non-commercial art media
found in nature.

Alabama Visual Arts Standard

Kindergarten – 5. Create and tell a story that communicates about a familiar person, place, or thing.
14. Create art that tells a story about a life experience.
First Grade— 6. Use art vocabulary while creating art. Texture
15. Understand that people from different times and places have made art for a variety of reasons.

Alabama Social Studies Standard

Kindergarten – 12. Describe families and communities of the past, including jobs, education, transportation,
communication, and recreation.
• Identifying ways everyday life has both changed and remained the same.
First Grade – 6. Compare ways individuals and groups in the local community and state lived in the past to how they live
today.

Materials—brown craft paper or large paper bags, oil pastels or crayons, charcoal, images of cave art

Introduction—
Start the lesson by showing pictures of Altamira and/or Lascaux cave paintings (accessible through a Google search).
Ask students when and why they think the images were made. Art historians think that the paintings were made to
magically help the hunt. For example, images that show hunters hunting successfully were thought to increase the chance
of bringing back food. Shamans came to the caves to perform ritual ceremonies and to represent the beliefs of their
culture. Show students the images of Native American cave paintings.

Procedure—
1. Show a picture of the painting done by Native Americans in the Southeast. Ask students to consider why the artist
may have made the painting and what story it might tell.
2. Have the students imagine what would be important information to communicate to other members of their tribe or
other tribes. What story/information would the student tell to their community?
3. Discuss what a pictograph is? Explain that they communicated with pictures.
4. Pass out the craft paper. Explain that this is going to be our cave wall. What are caves made of? If you were to feel a
cave wall, what would it feel like? (use adjectives such as smooth/rough, wet/dry, hard/soft)
5. Tell the students to crumble their paper to create their cave wall.
6. Use crayons or oil pastels to draw their message to their community.
7. Optional modification—discuss what Native Americans used to paint—natural resources such as
mud, sticks, berries, and other natural pigment
8. Optional modification—provide organic items to paint with such as purple cabbage, pomegranate
skin, and leafy greens.