Purpose To develop an appreciation of the various purposes for masks and the skill to make a mask for a special purpose. This also has links to other learning areas such as Mathematics and Studies of society and environment. Materials required Each student will need paper, pencil and coloured pencils or textas. Many of these may be brought to class by students as a result of the resource hunt in step 1 below. The following focus activities could run concurrently in the classroom, or sequentially, as listed here.
Students make several masks and contribute to a class exhibition.
1 Introducing masks Discuss students' ideas about masks, encouraging a broad range of views. Invite students to participate in a resource hunt and contribute to establishing the learning centres. 2 Focus on painted faces Students examine examples of face decoration and are challenged to think about people who decorate their faces, how it is done and why. Ask students to draw a picture of their partner's face, design a pattern and draw it on the picture. Encourage them to think about patterns, lines and colours and then write about their design, explaining their choices of pattern and colours.