Reconciliation Week Art Ideas – Tiddalick the Frog

National Reconciliation Week is a great opportunity to learn more about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture and history. There are some great details about the purpose of this week, as well as ways of participating, on the National Reconciliation Week website.

Dreamtime stories have long been a favourite of my students. Not only do they capture the imaginations of the students, drawing their attention, but they also help reflect the culture and history of the original owners of this great land.

One of my personal favourites is the story of Tiddalick the Frog. In honour of National Reconciliation Week, I am sharing with you one of my favourite art pieces that my students enjoy year after year.

Templates for this artwork can be found in my Free Resource Library. Don’t have the password yet for the Library? Head to my Instagram account, check out my Story Highlights and inside the one titled FREE, you will find the password. Feel free to follow my Instagram account while you are there.

So here are the instructions on creating your own Tiddalick master piece.

You will need:

Glue stick
Scissors
Watercolour paints
Oil pastels or crayons (I personally prefer oil pastels as the colours are more vibrant
A3 paper
Tiddalick templates
Leaves (optional)

Note: Before I begin this art work I read to my students the story of Tiddalick the Frog. If you don’t have a picture book for the story here is a link to a video or a printable PDF with a simple story on it.

I also like my students to have completed their recount before beginning the art work as well.

Soooo….

Colour in your frogs. There are many ways you can go about doing this. Either colour them fully in crayon or oil pastel. Or partially colour them with oil pastel or crayon and then paint with water colours over the top (as I did for the spotty frog).
Cut out your frog. (Allow the water colour paint to dry if you painted them)
Putting your frogs aside, take your A3 paper. Students will now do rubbings on their A3 paper. This really can be of anything you like. I chose leaves, with the aim for students to paint them blue with watercolours, giving the illusion of a pond. For the other one we simply rubbed lines along the paper while resting the paper on concrete. This gave the lines a rough texture. This was then painted over in brown water colours to give the illusion of dirt or mud.
After rubbings are completed, students can was over the top with your chosen water colour paint.
Once the paint has dried, students can now glue their frog and recount onto the A3 paper.