Celebration Quilt

Big Idea: Celebration and Family

Grade: 3rd
21st Century Art Ed Approach: Modify Choice, Visual Thinking
Strategies, and Meaning Making
Created by: Ashley Sutter, Marcell Ramish, and Lawrence
Schaedler-Bahrs
Lesson Overview
Students will be able to share how their
family celebrates certain holidays and get a
chance to know what holidays their peers
celebrate as well. Students will first be
exposed to various depictions of holiday
celebrations amongst cultures. After which,
they shall be given an activity in which
they will use various materials to create
drawings reflecting their own holiday
celebrations. Students will then take all of
the classes different drawings on how they
celebrate and make a quilt out of it. At the
end students will VTS their classmates
artwork and discuss how cultures/religions
celebrate in different ways.
Essential Questions
1. Why do people celebrate?
2. What are traditions?
3. How do celebrations with
create meaning within
communal identity?
4. How do people celebrate?
Key Concepts
1. People celebrate different
holidays all around the world.
2. Celebrations give life
meaning.
3. People celebrate traditions.
4. Celebration leads to
meaning making in art and
discussion.
 Lesson Objectives
Content area 1 Literacy : learn and identify vocabulary words and how it
relates to the big idea of celebrations and family. Literacy would be assessed
through memo writing based on readings.
Content area 2 Visual Art : The students will (TSW) be able to . . . Create a
drawing or painting of how his/her family celebrates a certain holiday in their
culture utilizing line, form, use of space, and color. Tying these individual
pieces together with yarn, students will also be making a communal quilt in
the same guise as the inspiration artist, Faith Ringgold.
Content area 3 Geography: The students will (TSW) be able to . . . relate to and
identify different holidays that are celebrated around the world and also be
able to identify the countries where these holidays are celebrated.
Vocabulary
1. Big Idea: The overreaching theme of
something (in this case art).
2. Celebration: acknowledge (a significant
or happy day or event) with a social
gathering or enjoyable activity.
3. Community: a group of people living in
the same place or having a particular
characteristic in common.
4. Culture: deposit of knowledge,
experience, beliefs, values, attitudes,
meanings, and religion acquired by a group
of people in the course of generations
through individual and group striv
ing.
5. Diversity: the inclusion of individuals
representing more than one national origin,
color, religion, etc.
6. Tradition: the transmission of customs or
beliefs from generation to generation, or the
Readings: Discussion Activity
After having read the two assigned articles please answer the
following questions with your table on a piece of paper:

What are the pros and cons of letting a student be

the artist
What does celebration mean to you?
What do you like to celebrate with your family?
From the reading what was the most interesting
celebration you read about and why?
Christmas Celebrations around the World
 Inspiration Artist: Faith Ringgold
Faith Ringgold is a painter, writer, speaker, mixed
media sculptor and performance artist. She
lives and works in Englewood, New Jersey.

Faith used to paint with traditional oils but she

abandoned those and instead started painting
acrylic on unstretched canvas with fabric
borders, a technique evoking Tibetan thangkas
(silk paintings with embroidery). With this
technique she makes narrative quilts

Faith Combines quilt making, genre painting, and

storytelling through images and hand-written
texts. Many of her artworks rewrite African
American art history, emphasizing the
importance of family, roots, and artistic
collaboration

Retrieved from: https://www.artsy.net/artist/faith-ringgold

Activity: Celebration Quilt
Students will grab a hole punched piece of
paper and are able to choose if they would
like to draw or paint what holiday they
celebrate with their family. Students also can
choose if they want to decorate their picture
with glitter, gems, etc. There are no
restrictions here.

Once finished, students will collaborate and tie

together their artwork with yarn and form a
Celebration Quilt.

After the Celebration Quilt is formed students

will gather around the quilt and the teacher
will perform a VTS workshop with their
students.
Materials Needed
Crayons
Markers
Colored Pencils
Water Color Paint
Paint brushes
White Construction
Paper
Colored Construction
Hole Puncher
Yarn
Glitter
Gems
After Lesson Assessment
Now since you know a little bit more about
Celebrations and family, can you answer
these essential questions?

1. Why do people
celebrate?
2. What are traditions?
3. How do celebrations
with create meaning
within communal identity?
4. How do people