Mosaic Flag
Key Vocabulary
- Mosaic
Materials
- By the Dawn's Early Light, by Steven Kroll
- Star-Spangled Banner recording
- Rainbow® Kraft Sentence Strips, item #0073400
- Pacon® Easel Pad, item #3385
- Markers
- Magazines or images from the web
- Scissors
- Glue
Resources
Objective
Students will read and learn about the history of Francis Scott Key’s Star-Spangled Banner and the importance of the song in American history. Students will then create a mosaic of the US flag using images that they feel represent America.
Standards
Social Studies
Social studies programs should include experiences that provide for the study of the past and its legacy.
Art
Relate artistic ideas and works with societal, cultural and historical context to deepen understanding.
Engagement
Read By the Dawn’s Early Light by Steven Kroll as a whole class to learn about the history of the Star-Spangled Banner. Discuss the important historical events that are brought up in the book, and how it might have felt to be living during that time.
Activity
Step 01
After reading the book By the Dawn’s early Light, play a recording of the Star-Spangled Banner and have students sing along if they know it.
Step 02
Look at the lyrics to the Star-Spangled Banner and discuss each line as it relates to the book, By the Dawn's Early Light.
Step 03
Using sentence strips with the Star-Spangled Banner lyrics written on them, give each student a sentence strip and have them arrange themselves in order from the beginning to the end of the song.
Step 04
Once students have unscrambled the lines to the song, cut up the sentence strips and mix up the words in a pile.
Step 05
Have students work together to piece the lyrics back together like a puzzle, adhering them to a sheet of paper as they go.
Step 06
Relate the lyric puzzle activity students just finished in step 3 to how America is like a puzzle as well, made up of a variety of people, landscapes, events, etc. to create the bigger picture of America. In art, this is called a mosaic. Tell students they will be making an American flag mosaic that represents the qualities of America.
Step 07
Show students examples of mosaics (see resources).
Step 08
Brainstorm a list of qualities of America as a class: free, democratic, proud, etc.
Step 09
Have students look through magazines, and/or find images to print from the web that represent the words they brainstormed in the previous step.
Step 10
Once students have gathered their images, have them cut the images into tiny pieces and arrange to create their own mosaic version of the flag.
Assessment
Have students share their mosaic flags with a partner, explaining the images they used for the mosaic pieces, and why they chose those images.