1st Grade Egyptian Cats

In the winter, I was able to take a trip down to Washington DC and visit the Freer and Sackler galleries, where they had an exhibit on the role of Felines in Egyptian Art. It was really cool to learn about how Egyptians associated their traits with specific divinities. Cats enjoy the sun, so they were frequently associated with the God Re. Because of cats protective instincts, many goddesses were represented as female cats. As a result from my experience, I had my first graders do a quick project based upon this exhibit

Materials Needed
Gold Acrylic Paint
9x 12" Black Construction Paper
9x12" white drawing paper
brown/orange Crayola Color Stix
Texture Plates
Torn kraft paper sheets ( long enough to fill bottom of paper)
Orange/Yellow/Red Flourescent Tempera Paint
Paint Brushes
Pencils
Sequins (Optional)

Day 1#- I talked to my students about the background information about Egyptian cats as described above. Using pencil, students drew an eygptian cat on a 9x12" piece of black construction paper. I encouraged them to draw a small pyramid behind their cat to be used later on. They then used small brushes and used gold acyrlic paint to go over their original drawings.

Day 2#- I spoke to my students about the weather in Egypt. How it is mostly made up of desert, and is usually very hot there. We identified the hot colors on the color wheel, and I also explained how they are analogous colors on the color wheel. I had my students paint the sunset in a circular motion, starting from yellow, orange, and then finally red using tempera paint on a 9 x12" piece of drawing paper.

Day 3#- After the students' background had dried from the previous week, it was now time to put all of this together. I gave the students small pieces of torn kraft paper, and demonstrated how to use color stix and place texture places underneath to create a texture rubbing. This would create "sand". When done with that, they cut out their Egyptian Cat Paintings and (pyramid). I had the students arrange their pieces before gluing down to make sure the perspective was right. First the background paper, then torn kraft paper, and the Egyptian cat on top to make it look like our cats were sitting in the sand! I used some tacky glue and added a little sequin on the cats' crown for fun!