Perfect companion to regular Crayola Fabric Markers! Bright Fabric Markers let you create vivid, colorful designs – even on dark colors!

• 1.

  What is culture? What can be learned about a culture by observing its popular trends throughout history? Can you think of something that would be iconic in the United States? What are culturally “American” things? Football, baseball, hamburgers, Mickey Mouse, and McDonalds are probably some of the things that came to mind.

• 2.

  Look at pictures of iconic images, like a turban, the Eiffel Tower, or a four-leaf clover, with the class. What cultures do these items represent? What other examples of cultural symbols can you identify? Learning about other cultures through these objects helps us to understand those groups of people. Why is it important to understand other cultures? Research with your class to discover cultural symbols from all over the world. What symbols have historic significance? Are any symbols related to current pop culture? Make a list on the board of your findings.

• 3.

  Graphic tee shirts often feature designs containing symbols and cultural icons that are popular. Create a stylish graphic tee design that incorporates several cultural icons representing a specific country. Refer to the list on the classroom board for ideas and inspiration!

• 4.

  Place a sheet of paper inside a 100% cotton shirt, between the front and back layers of fabric, to prevent bleed through. Draw your design with Crayola Bright Fabric Markers, making sure you saturate the cloth. Apply several layers of color to increase the brightness of the drawing. Be creative with your graphic tee design! Imagine your shirt will be sold in stores! What can you add to make the symbols stand out? What decorative elements can you add to enhance the overall design? Stain Advisement: Fabric markers are permanent on clothing and contain colorants that may stain household surfaces. Wear a smock to protect clothing and cover your work surface. Recap markers as soon as possible and store in a horizontal position. Do not shake markers.

• 5.

  When you are finished, ask an adult to iron your design. Set iron on cotton setting and iron on the reverse side using a back and forth motion for 4 minutes. Or place garment in the dryer for 30 minutes on the hottest setting. This will fix the color to the fabric.

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: Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English capitalization, punctuation, and spelling when writing.
• LA: Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English grammar and usage when writing or speaking.
• 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.
• SS: Use appropriate resources, data sources, and geographic tools to generate, manipulate, and interpret information.
• SS: Describe ways in which language, stories, folktales, music, and artistic creations serve as expressions of culture and influence behavior of people living in a particular culture.
• SS: Describe how people create places that reflect ideas, personality, culture, and wants and needs as they design homes, playgrounds, classrooms, and the like.
• VA: Intentionally take advantage of the qualities and characteristics of art media, techniques, and processes to enhance communication of experiences and ideas.
• VA: Select and use the qualities of structures and functions of art to improve communication of ideas.
• VA: Use subjects, themes, and symbols that demonstrate knowledge of contexts, values, and aesthetics that communicate intended meaning in artworks.
• VA: Describe and place a variety of art objects in historical and cultural contexts.

Adaptations

• Invite a community member who immigrated from a foreign country to meet with students and share his culture. Prior to the visit, students compose questions for the guest. After the visit, students post learning to a class blog.
• Working in teams of two, students investigate symbols of various cultures. Have the team select on culture to focus their research on and create their graphic tees to represent symbols from this culture. Students compose a summary paragraph to display with their graphic tees, explaining the significance of the symbols included on the tee.
• Students work together to analyze their school culture. What symbols represent the school? If the school has no mascot, students work together to develop a mascot. Once completed and agreed upon by the class, students create graphic tees representing the culture of their school.