Matariki Art Lessons for the New Zealand New Year

Hi Friends,

As July approaches, a very significant day draws near for the people of New Zealand. Matariki, the Maori New Year, is named for the Matariki star cluster (Pleiades) which is visible in our night skies for 11 months of the year. It disappears  in the lunar month of Haratua (May/June) and rises again around a month later in the North-Eastern sky during the lunar Month of Piripi .(June/July). This celestial event marks the beginning of the Māori calendar, signalling a time for both reflection about the year that past, and renewal for the year ahead. It is a time for communities to come together and celebrate. Since 2022, this is now also an official public holiday, one that falls on a different day each year due to the lunar calendar.

This celebration, a time for Peace, Joy and Community, has lead to many art forms that educators can explore as a way to connect classroom learning with this important event. But first, let's dive a little deeper into the history of Matariki.

While Matariki has deep cultural significance for the people of Aotearoa New Zealand, it is understood and celebrated in different ways across the country. Legend has it that Tāwhirimātea (the god of wind) was so angry with his siblings for causing the separation of this parents - the sky father (Ranginui) and earth mother (Papatūānuku) - that he ripped out his eyes and flung them into the heavens. This gives Matariki its full name - The eyes of the god Tāwhirimātea (Ngā Mata o te Ariki Tāwhirimātea).

With the star cluster disappearing and then returning each year, this event celestial became linked with the cycle of life, death and rebirth. This is now a time to remember our ancestors, releasing their spirits to become stars. Similarly, a time to express thanks for the past year's harvest by feasting and sharing the bounty with family and friends. Celebrations often include storytelling and cultural performances which offer a wonderful opportunity to teach about cultural connection through engaging forms of creative expression.

Some popular options that educators can explore for art creating, include:

1. Star (whetu) themed art - painting, collages or sculptures that depict celestial representations. See a starry night lesson idea below.

2. Kites - the design and construction of traditional Māori kites can represent both ancestral connections and the spirit of Matariki.

3. Flax Weaving - teaching the traditional art of weaving flax leaves to create beautiful and functional pieces, like baskets (kete) and mats (whariki). See a lesson idea below.

1) Starry Night - an art lesson for Upper Elementary

You can make a great connection to a well loved artwork - Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh - when exploring Matariki with Year 5-6  and middle school students.

First, it's important that students can correctly recite their personal and individual Pepeha. For help with this you can visit the following website: https://pepeha.nz/

A pepeha is a formal way of introducing yourself in Māori. It tells others about who you are by sharing your connection with people and places that are important to you.

Your pepeha is the inspiration for the content of this artwork. Students then locate images of water, mountains, plants and buildings or other landmarks that they associate with their significant place. 

Combining this with information about The eyes of the god Tāwhirimātea (Ngā Mata o te Ariki Tāwhirimātea) and the Post-Impressionist technique of Vincent Van Gogh, students create wonderful original artworks they can be proud of.

For a fully comprehensive art lesson including a video tutorial please visit my TPT store - One Teacher's Journey - HERE 

or visit my website - Help Me Learn - HERE

2) Make a Manu Tuktuku - Maori kite - an art lesson for Mid Elementary

Start this lesson with the shared book called The Seven Kites of Matariki. Here is a link to the read-aloud on YouTube:

The following video, made by Tauranga City Library, will guide you through resources to collect and and the steps to making kites with your students. 

3) Woven Whariki or blanket for lying down to watch the night sky  - an art lesson for Early Elementary.

Traditionally mats would be woven from the leaves of a flax plant in New Zealand. However, when harvesting the leaves of this plant, certain cultural procedures (tikanga) need to be followed. Here is a video on YouTube explaining more about that:

In the classroom you can substitute other materials  to teach weaving, when gathering flax is not an option. I always save the paper strips from trimming student artworks and these provide colourful pieces for students to work with. You can also strip coloured card on the guillotine for this lesson. By using up trimmings from other artworks that would otherwise be thrown away, you are aligning to, and honouring the Māori world view on sustainability and environmental awareness.

Students are given an A5 sized card to turn into a loom following a few careful steps and then they can weave coloured card or paper strips though this to create their mat or blanket.

Another option is to use wool on a loom. Make the looms by pre-cutting thick packaging cardboard to aprox. A5 size. Snip into both short edges - cut 1-2 cm deep and use 2cm spacing. Wrap the Warp thread around the card and tape the ends off. Thread a large plastic / craft needle with a length of wool and weave (the Weft) in and out of the Warp threads to create the blanket. Snip the ends of the Warp treads across the back of the card and tie this off in pairs across the top and bottom of the weaving. 

With the paper option, you can layer thinner strips, decorative strips or even thick wool across the weaving too.

For the full paper weaving lesson which also includes a video tutorial, you can go to my TPT store - One Teacher's Journey - HERE or 

visit my website - Help Me Learn - HERE

So bring your classroom communities together and use the arts as a way to acknowledge the past, celebrate the present and look forward to the future.

Keep warm everyone! and enjoy your winter break if you are teaching in the Southern hemisphere.

Year Long Visual Art Lesson Tutorials First Grade

Hi there!

Are you new to teaching visual art? Does the thought of paint splatter and clay dust send you screaming to the staff room for a strong cup of coffee? I get it. 

Teaching art in elementary is a multi-layered & complex activity. Thankfully many teachers give the arts a space in their planning and weekly programmes, even when they don't feel qualified or skilled to do so. They still realise the importance of students having opportunity for expression and creation. 

After many years teaching in the classroom, I increasingly saw the arts being squeezed out of our loaded curriculums. Even the government withdrew financial backing in this area for many years.

The arts brings colour to your daily grind. It grows the imagination and builds language skills, which directly translates to our writing curriculums. Making art requires critical thinking and problem solving which supports mathematical thinking and concepts.  

So set up an art media exploration centre in your classroom, run a guided art lesson with your class, and bring a little colour back into your teaching days in the form of student artworks decorating your walls instead of adult created classroom decor themes.

Finding just the right lesson for your students is not easy, guessing whether its age appropriate for your young learners, finding the time to try it out yourself ahead of time - who has time for that?

Now that I have moved out of the classroom and into a specialist role in the arts, I am able to trial my art lesson ideas across the entire K-6 range of levels. You can trust that these lessons will meet the needs of your students and give you step-by-step support to teach an art lesson with success.

This is my First Grade Art Lessons Bundle that you can view on TPT. While a classroom teacher does not need the entire 25 lesson collection, its a great place to start and view the lessons for this age group. Browse the collection and choose the ones that are just right for you. Click on each link in the product description to be taken to your preferred lesson.

However, for art room teachers, whether experienced but looking for valuable support with fresh ideas, or new to the role and feeling overwhelmed about where to start - this bundle may be just what you need.  There is enough content in here to keep you going for up to 3 years in First Grade. Alternately, scale some lessons up for 2nd and others down for Kindergarten. This way you can get even more out of this bundle for 3 grade levels.

So what do teachers, who have already used lessons included in this bundle, say about them? Here are just a few ...

SUNSET SUNRISE (paint & collage)

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 'This was so well done in helping explain the process of creating the sunrise/sunset. I really liked the way science and art are combined.'

KANDINSKY'S GARDEN (paint, cut & assemble)

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ “Amazing value, this resource is super engaging and my learners absolutely loved the activities. Made teaching art really simple for me too, thank you!”

SPRING FLOWERS (paint, cut & assemble)

⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ "did this with my first grade class. Took us about 4 art classes to complete. turned out so absolutely beautiful that they were displayed in our school foyer"

SNAILS IN MY GARDEN (draw & paint)

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ "We used this for a line project and the students really enjoyed doing this. It was a unique project for students and we were able to tie in a book with it as well. Thanks for the great lesson."

COLLAGE SELF-PORTRAITS - based on Goldilocks (collage)

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ "We used this as a unique twist on self portraits. My students thought this was really fun and different than just drawing ourselves. What a great lesson!"

Find this First Grade Art Lessons BUNDLE in my TPT store - One Teacher's Journey - HERE or click any of the images above. 

I would love to know what you think and whether you would like to see more bundles at other levels, too.

 

 

More Spring Themed Art Lesson Plans and Video Guides for Classroom Teachers

In my previous post I wrote about the benefits of harnessing the arrival of Spring as a starting point for some great art lessons with your students. This post will further expand on those benefits and also align some specific pick-up-and-go comprehensive art lessons that you can use with your students today. Some lessons are step-by-step PDF guides while others are narrated video demonstrations. You can find one that suits you and your students, the best.

More Spring-Themed Art Lesson Plans and Ideas

Abstract Garden Quilts & 3D Spring Flowers

Spring flowers are a symbol of new beginnings and can be the perfect subject for a spring-themed art lesson. Have your students collect different types of flower pictures or take photos of flowers. Both of the following art lessons will build problem solving skills and also result in each student’s work being unique.

Abstract Garden Quilts  focuses on the art concept of ABSTRACTION for 2nd grade and up. Use oil pastels and paints. This is a fully narrated video tutorial that demonstrates all steps in real time. Stream the video lesson on your large screen and free yourself up to roam your classroom and support your students. This lesson plan focuses on:

• Break up and recompose photographs

• Extract basic shapes to compose an image

• Under-painting to create the garden mood

• Show depth in an artwork through layering shapes and using analogous colours

• Contrast warm and cool colours to create focal points

3D Spring Flowers is a 3D painted paper collage art project for grades 1-3. Includes a fully illustrated PDF teaching guide that demonstrates every step. Introduce students to the elements of SHAPE and FORM, & the principle of PROPORTION (sizes and location). 2 colour schemes are demonstrated in the guide. Students also learn about colour value and using stencils to create repetition. 

Spring Flowers 3D art project has built in choice for differentiation, while keeping the skills taught consistent across the class, to save your sanity.

Praise for SPRING FLOWERS: 

⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ "did this with my first grade class. Took us about 4 art classes to complete. turned out so absolutely beautiful that they were displayed in our school foyer"

Butterflies and Bees Art works

Butterflies and bees are a common sight as spring arrives, and they make great subjects for a drawing lesson. Have your students study the different parts of these insects, including their wings, body, and antennae. This helps to create artworks with more understanding about the subject matter. 

Butterfly mobiles  

is a fully narrated video tutorial created for K-1st grade, that demonstrates all steps in real time. Stream the video lesson on your large screen and free yourself up to roam your classroom and support your students.

Benefits of using a video lesson:

• The lesson has already been tested

• All steps are viewable from start to finish

• Techniques are demonstrated

• Rewind and rewatch as many times as needed

• Narrated explanation adds depth to understanding art theories

• Its like having an art specialist in your classroom 

Bee Brave Art project for Back to School guides students to create values based artwork at the start of the new school year. Each student draws and paints a large flower design, symbolising learning growth in a happy classroom. Then add an observation drawing of a bee that representing themselves as the busy learner. Finally students incorporate a classroom value word of their choice, e.g. Bee Positive or Bee Kind. You will love the results and they can stay up on display all year as they remind students about the class expectations of a happy learning environment.

PRAISE FOR Bee Brave

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ "What a great back to school project. Great messages to go with this project and the students really got into it. I love the process of it and that if fits more than one grade level. Thanks!"

Blossom covered Spring Trees & Landscape Paintings

Spring trees and landscapes can be full of vibrant colours and interesting textures. Have your students study photographs of blossom covered trees and  landscapes and then create their own artworks using collage or a variety of colours and brushstrokes.

Bird Song Spring art lesson plan for BIRD SONGS COLLAGE suits Grades 2-4 introduces students to the wonderful media of paper collage. This comprehensive art project for grades 2-3, or older was inspired by the illustrations of popular children's picture books and the artworks of Henri Matisse.

• SHAPE - identify and use 2D shapes to compose artwork

• SPACE - Create space by layering shapes

• COLLAGE - gain experience and skill working with this medium

• STENCILS - gain experience and skill for making and working with stencils

This is a great art unit to combine with a Science inquiry focused on seasons (Spring) or animals (birds). For a literacy connection, collage picture books have been suggested as reference among other resource links, and a clear and comprehensive photo journal of each step of the process has been provided, along with student and teacher exemplars of work in progress and completed work.

This lesson plan focuses on:

Colour Value Landscapes is a project that can relate to plant life cycles and seasons, Sharing the Planet or How The World Works. Your students will love creating this unique and impactful art project that has a strong focus on the Element of Colour (Value) and the Colour Blocking painting technique. Learn about why as artists, we need to use multiple values in any hue and build painting skills with different paint brushes and tools.
COLOUR VALUE LANDSCAPES is a comprehensive visual art lesson plan for paint & oil pastel that will guide your students through creating artworks of trees on a hillside in a season of your choice, including spring. This lesson has tons of built in choice for differentiation

Spring Weather Art

Spring weather can be moody and unpredictable. Showers one minute and windy the next. Some great drawing and painting artworks can be created using the weather for inspiration. Combine with a poetry lesson, like writing Haikus about weather, and you’re onto a winner.

Rainy Days is great when you're teaching a unit on weather and needing an impactful Art Lesson that also helps to consolidate Science learning. Your students will love creating this bright art project with tons of built in choice for differentiation, while keeping the skills taught consistent across the class, to save your sanity. 

Take the guesswork out of teaching art, avoid the epic fails that result from not having the time to trial the lesson or media yourself before teaching it. I’ve done it all for you and trailed this lesson with my own students, aged 5-6, in 1st and 2nd grade.

Windy Weather is another great art project when you're teaching a unit on weather and needing an impactful Art Lesson that helps to consolidate Science concepts. Your students will love creating this fun art project about a kid with an umbrella, blown off their feet by the force of the wind. With an art focus on the principle of MOVEMENT, this lesson has tons of built in choice for differentiation. I’ve trailed this lesson with my own students, aged 6-8, in 2nd grade through 4th grade. 

PRAISE FOR WINDY WEATHER:

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ “This is a great project, my grade two students definitely found it challenging. We had to stop and replay the video several times. I found the guide pages very helpful.”

And finally...

Easter themes

As Easter falls into spring (Northern hemisphere), bunnies form another popular subject matter. These create a gorgeous wall display in your classroom, and students can add eggs and / or flowers to further embellish their display.

Fluffy Easter Bunnies is a comprehensive art lesson plan to guide your Easter art project in grades 1-3, using poster paints and sponge printing techniques. Includes a PDF teaching support document with printable drawing guides and display suggestions. This lesson comes with the instructional video that demonstrates every step, supporting students with creating texture in paint, using the element of SHAPE and the principle of PROPORTION. 3 versions (colour and bunny poses) demonstrated, to guide originality. Created with students aged 5, this lesson plan is aimed at early elementary but also includes an extension for older/ more capable students, and focuses on:

• the element of SHAPE concepts and principles of PROPORTION

• painting techniques (sponge painting)

• and fine motor skills (drawing, cutting, composing)

So as you can see, Spring brings many options for incorporating amazing art projects into your teaching days and your students will love you for introducing them to a range of art processes and creative options.
If you would like to know more about any of these lesson plans, click on any of the images or links to be taken directly to that lesson on TPT.

If you find TPT overwhelming, you might prefer to browse my website  instead. All links for where you can find me are below my signature at the end of this post.
And please reach out in the comments or on any of my platforms if you have any questions about my products or about teaching in general.

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