Paint with dots—yes, just dots—to design a decorative plate. Australian Aboriginal painters use the same technique in their art.

• 1.

  Find out more about the dot paintings of Australia’s Aboriginal people. This art form, which has its roots in the ancient "Dream Time" journeys, is still used today. Most dot paintings contain patterns of natural forms such as animals. Use this technique to decorate a plate that makes a wonderful gift!

• 2.

  Trace around a clear glass plate with Crayola® Erasable Colored Pencils on paper. Inside the outline, sketch one or more Australian creatures (koala or kangaroo, perhaps). Create a simple pattern for your plate by repeating the drawing, for example, or use it for a border. With Erasable Colored Pencils, it’s easy to make changes and correct mistakes!

• 3.

  Lay your drawing on newspaper. Place your plate over your drawing, face down. You will paint ONLY the underside of the plate.

• 4.

  Use cotton swabs to apply dots of Crayola Portfolio Acrylic Paint on the glass. Use your pattern as a guide. Keep your dots smooth and round by changing cotton swabs often.

• 5.

  Experiment with other colors and patterns to fill the areas around the animal forms. Fill the entire underside of your plate with dots of color.

• 6.

  Air-dry the plate overnight before you lift it.

Standards

• LA: Read with sufficient accuracy and fluency to support comprehension.
• LA: Engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions with diverse partners on grade level topics and texts, building on others' ideas and expressing their own clearly.
• LA: Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development and organization are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience.
• LA: Report on a topic or text, tell a story, or recount an experience in an organized manner, using appropriate facts and relevant, descriptive details to support main ideas or themes; speak clearly at an understandable pace.

Adaptations

• Website link for Aboriginal stories, entitled "A Children's Book of Aboriginal Stories" by S. Pridmore is located at http://eprints.utas.edu.au/13321/. A variety of stories are presented in PDF format for viewing and printing.
• Encourage students to create an Aboriginal-style dot painting on fabric, such as a t-shirt, to wear as part of a presentation of learning about the Aboriginal culture.
• Invite a native of Australia or someone who has traveled there extensively to speak with the class about the travel experience. Prior to the visit, have students compose interview questions for the guest. After the visit, students post their learning to a class blog.
• Students take on the role of a travel agent and research the geography and contemporary culture in Australia. Use the research to plan a week long family vacation. Prepare your organized research into an electronic presentation to use in "selling" your proposed trip to your classmates.
• Students use Crayola Window Markers to create Aboriginal dream dot designs on classroom windows. A small groups of students work on each window pane. A cooperative short story should accompany each window design.