Multicultural Lesson Plan

Content Area(s)/Course/Grade: The Art of Song/ Visual arts/ First grade

Lesson Topic: Students will be able to study the culture of Mexico by starting off with music. The students will be able to distinguish a mariachi guitar and hear how one sounds.

Teacher: Ms. Morgan 

Standard: Visual Arts VA.CR.2.1a - Explore uses of materials, tools, approaches (such as using elements of modern art, applying artistic ideas from diverse cultures, etc.) to create works of art or design.

Instructional Delivery Opening 

What You Need: Colored paper, black poster board, paint, white crayons 

Activities/Motivation: The students will get to explore a part of Hispanic culture by coloring and painting and doing a hands-on mariachi guitar activity that will get them excited.

Procedures: I will play a recording as the class creates mariachi guitar drawings. I'll explain that "warm" colors like orange, red, and yellow are "warm," while "cool" colors like blue, green, and purple tones are "cool." After that, the kids draw a guitar shape on black paper, paint a solid-colored border around it, and color the instrument with a mix of cool and warm colors; a black circle in the center depicts the soundhole. To represent machine heads or tuning keys, kids cut and paste tiny strips of colored paper and embellish the head with sequins or buttons. Finally, as the kids listen to the music, they use paint and white crayons to decorate the background of their artworks to depict what they are hearing.

Assessment/Evaluation 

To see if the kids are picking up the main lesson of learning about a mariachi guitar I would have a little quiz at the end just about the looks of the guitar and when it is played to see if their outcomes of the lesson are focused solely on the art or if they are picking up on the cultural aspect of it.

How have you adapted this lesson to be a multicultural lesson?

I read this lesson plan on a lesson plan website last semester, and I think it is a great way to incorporate Mexican culture into our lives and is a good stepping stone into having an open discussion about another culture. It also allows our Hispanic students to connect better with their culture and learn more about some things they might not know yet.