Learning with art and math about the buildings of Russia

It is time for another Around the World lesson, with a stop this month in Russia.  If you are interested in learning more about the language, culture and how to teach your children about it, you have found the right place. 

We even have a guest post about Russian food over at Mama Smiles, stop on by to learn more!

Learning with art and math: Famous Landmarks

For this lesson, I wanted to incorporate art, math, geography, and FUN.  Inspired by a local sidewalk chalk art festival, the kids and I did a little research on the famous Russian buildings. 

The colorful domes of Saint Basil (more info here on the Kremilin and Red Square area) inspired the children!

It was time to grab our brand new box of sidewalk chalk and head outdoors!

We printed an image of Saint Basil and I used a permanent marker to gird 1″ x1″ squares across the printed picture.  I cut the extra off so that all we had was the picture with the grid to look at.  We then got to work making a larger grid on our driveway.

As you can tell, I much prefer assistance than perfection!  We couldn’t find the yard stick and settled for using a left over piece of shelving and non-standard units of measurement (I counted the holes in the metal and divided by 6, because that is how many squares I needed)

Then, using the grid (the one in yellow) that I drew (kids in upper elementary school and older can do this on their own!) I started to sketch the basic outline, starting at the lower left corner.

Don’t worry if it doesn’t look pretty – as you can tell, mine didn’t!

Start adding colors.  Chalk is messy, so wear some play clothes and rub it in when you have the color you want in the place you want it. (otherwise, the chalk just blows away)  You can blow on a little section to see what I mean!

Older kids can help fill in the colors.  Teach them how to look back at the grid and figure out which square in the big grid corresponds with which square on the little grid.  (Now we are getting into some really advanced mathematical terms that I can’t even remember – help!)

Little ones will still be little ones!  They want to help too.  Although this activity is geared for kids ages 4 to adult, littles can help fill in big areas (like the tree or sky)  They can also just add whatever they want to add and you can work it into the drawing! 

As I said before, I like participation and not perfection!

Buildings of Russia with Sidewalk Chalk

And this is a project even I couldn’t resist helping to color in!

The more chalk and colors that are added, the more the building begins to take shape.  Although Saint Basil Cathedral is an iconic symbol of Russia, has historical significance, and beautiful colors, there are many other buildings to choose from for this activity. 

If you have 2 older children, they may want to try to draw 2 different buildings.  Maybe even invite some friends over for a playdate and have different groups work on different buildings!  I would love to see kids at school try this too! 

How neat would it be to see a bunch of buildings from Russia scattered on the sidewalks and driveways!

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