The G5/6 class studied for a month about Early Humankind and Development of Human Societies. As part of our cross curricular lesson, we engaged in an art activity using rock pigments.

We collected sources for our pigments by going to the park and collecting rocks of different colors and textures. We broke the rocks with a hammer into smaller chunks and grinded them with a mortar and pestle. We sifted the crushed powder to get rid of any bigger rock pieces until we were left with a satisfactory consistency. We filtered the powder by mixing it with water in order to separate any debris from the pigments. We then used an egg yolk as a binding agent for the pigments to make our paints.

We mixed the rock powder, egg yolk, and a little bit of water with paintbrushes until it turned into a paste. This “paste” is the paint that we used to create our “cave art” paintings!

The whole process took a lot of time and energy and we now have an even greater appreciation for the gift that our ancestors left behind.