Mosaics

In this lesson, we learned about the difference between warm and cool colors, along with some things about shape. We examined the history of mosaics, watching a video detailing the history of mosaics and what they were used to decorate. We then did a mini activity, making our own mini mosaic out of square cut outs of construction paper to make out our first initial (S in my case) with a background in warm vs cool colors. Upon completion of the mini activity, we were sorted into groups of 3-4 and given little parts of a bigger cut out picture. We had to replicate the picture as a bigger mosaic within our groups. My group's mini picture was of a tree. We had to use 3 different warm colors and 3 different cool colors in this larger project. We used cool colors for our tree, warm colors for our sky, and orange for the ground. I had the left side of the tree.

A good extension project for this activity would be to make it an even bigger group project. You could outline the basic shapes for each student, then have every student in the class have a tiny piece of a bigger picture. The students could then hang all of them up together on a bulletin board, treating it like putting together a puzzle to figure out who has what piece.