Introduction to Women Artists 

Do Now: Draw your favorite memory from winter break. 

To begin class today, I challenged the 3rd and 4th graders to list as many artists as they could think of. They did a wonderful job generating names, but when we looked at the list we noticed something important: only one of the artists listed was a woman. 

For the next few weeks, the 3rd and 4th grade is beginning a unit on women artists. 

The first female artist we studied is Faith Ringgold. Faith Ringgold has made many types of art, but she is perhaps most famous for her quilt making and her children's book "Tar Beach" Faith Ringgold's great-grandmother was a slave in Florida, and as part of her duties she made quilts. She then passed this skill down to the women in her family. Faith Ringgold decided to continue the tradition of quilt making, but to make quilts in a very different way. If you look closely at the illustrations in "Tar Beach", you can see a collaged border along the side, almost like a quilt.

After reading "Tar Beach", we started part 1 of a 3 day project. For part 1, students received a small piece of paper, on which they had to draw one of their favorite memories.