Aztec Suns, 1st Grade

To begin this lesson, I showed students the Aztec Calendar (which is in the shape of the sun). We talked about how important the sun was to the Aztecs. My first graders loved looking at this and noticing how different it was from the typical suns they draw. We then created our own suns on black paper.

Basic Directions:

1. Have them draw a small circle in the middle of the page. Then draw a second circle around the small circle. Keep drawing circles around each other until they have four circles drawn. Each circle should be a little bigger than the one before. (do this in a step by step instruction format, otherwise they won't understand).

2. In each row, they will draw a simple pattern. (could be squares, triangles, stars...)

3. In the center they may draw a face for the sun (happy, sad, scary, it doesn't matter)

4. Color everything in with oil pastels.