4th Grade: Aztec Suns

The 4th grade students learn about the Aztec Sun Stone. The Aztec Sun Stone was an enormous calendar that was 12 feet high, 4 feet thick and weighed 24,000 tons! The Aztec calendar was different than our calendar today because they had 18 months each containing 18 days, which still equaled the same amount of days in year. The Aztec Sun Stone was the inspiration for many people to create artwork revolving around suns. The students were able to see a bunch of different examples of drawings, paintings, ceramics, and sculptures all dealing with suns. The students had to create half of their sun using wavy or curved lines and the other half using straight lines. We also reviewed the warm/cool color schemes. Students were shown how to blend colors using oil crayons. Finally students had to create half of their sun with the warm colors and the other half with the cool colors. Then they used the opposite color scheme for their background. This created contrast and really made their suns pop!