Black History Month 5th Grade Collaborative Art Pieces

Hey guys!  I am so proud of my 5th graders right now.  They stepped out of their comfort zone and worked together to create this super duper collaborative piece for Black History Month.

I am extremely proud of them.  To some this may not seem like the best work, but for 10 and 11 year olds that have never done anything like this before it's pretty amazing

So here's how we did it.  I first found some templates online of Maya Angelou, Martin Luther King, and Rosa Parks.  I printed them off the computer and folded them until I had made 32 squares.  I then labeled each square with a letter and numbered them in order of their place in the picture, then cut them all out.  I cut 9x6 sheets of 80lb drawing paper for this project.  The students took one drawing paper and a square of the picture.  Their objective was to transfer the image onto the drawing paper so that it looked like a bigger version of the square.  Some struggled and others persevered, but they all managed to get a piece done.  We then set them all out on the table and put them in order, then started piecing them together like a puzzle.  We taped them together on the back and erased all the smudges.  Voila! They made a large scale drawing of some of the most important people to black history month!  In the picture above it is hung in the gym to go along with the 4th grade Black History Month presentation.  I later moved it to the hall which you can see in this picture.

I did, however, have 4th grade's help on the letters that spell out Black History Month.  That was simply finding an online template of the letters, printing them out, and having the students color and cut them out.  Then I glued them onto a black paper backing.  Here's some closeups of the coloring they did.

I also went online and found some insightful quotes from these people with their pictures on them.  That way if anyone wasn't sure who it was they could look at the photo and see who it is.  Here is some closeups of those photos.

And of course I want you to see the drawings 5th grade did up close too.

This project was such a big hit, I'm already thinking about what kind of collaborative piece I can do next!  Do you have any ideas?  Share them with me in the comments!