Animating Text: Animate Your Name
Students use code to make letters move, change color, or make sounds when clicked, personalizing their first coding project.
Key Questions
- Design a sequence of code blocks to animate a letter in multiple ways.
- Analyze the relationship between a specific code block and the resulting action on screen.
- Explain how to trigger multiple actions simultaneously within a program.
ACARA Content Descriptions
About This Topic
Art Through the Ages encourages Year 2 students to become 'art historians.' Aligned with the ACARA Visual Arts curriculum, this topic involves comparing artworks from different times and cultures to see how materials and subjects have changed. Students explore how people from long ago, such as ancient cave painters or early colonial artists, used the tools available to them to record their daily lives.
This unit helps students understand that art is a reflection of its time. In Australia, this includes comparing ancient First Nations rock art (the oldest continuous art tradition in the world) with modern digital art. By investigating 'then and now,' students develop a sense of historical empathy and an appreciation for human creativity across millennia. Student-centered strategies like 'The Material Mystery' allow students to physically handle different media and hypothesize about their origins.
Active Learning Ideas
Inquiry Circle: The Material Mystery
Groups are given a 'mystery bag' containing an old material (e.g., charcoal, a feather) and a modern one (e.g., a felt-tip pen). They must figure out how to use both to draw a simple animal and discuss which was harder to use.
Gallery Walk: Time Travelers
The classroom is split into 'The Past' and 'The Present.' Students walk through both 'galleries' and use sticky notes to identify things that are the same (e.g., people, animals) and things that are different (e.g., colors, tools).
Simulation Game: The Cave Painter
Students 'travel back in time' and can only use their fingers and 'mud' (brown paint) to draw a story on a piece of crumpled brown paper. They then discuss why ancient artists chose to draw on walls.
Watch Out for These Misconceptions
Common MisconceptionArt from the past is 'worse' because it's old.
What to Teach Instead
Students often think modern art is better because it's more realistic or colorful. Active comparison helps them see the incredible skill and ingenuity required to make art using only natural materials like crushed berries or stones.
Common MisconceptionArtists in the past didn't have imagination.
What to Teach Instead
Children might think old art is 'boring.' Looking at the mythical creatures in ancient art or the vibrant stories in rock art shows them that imagination has always been a part of being human.
Suggested Methodologies
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Frequently Asked Questions
What is the oldest art in Australia?
How did artists make paint before shops existed?
How does active learning help students understand art history?
Why do we still look at old art today?
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