Aloha...from Aberdeen!

Today in art class, we worked with water colors and made our own lei!  Ms. Kalei incorporated her Hawaiian culture into our classroom today; we learned new vocabulary words and a lot of information about Lei Day in Hawaii.  We started off by practicing four different water color techniques and used them to paint whatever we wanted onto our watercolor paper.  When this was drying, we started to make our leis with yarn, construction paper flowers, and straws.  Once our watercolor design dried, I cut flowers out of that also.  The lei is then started with a paper flower, then a small chunk of straw, then I decided to put a watercolor flower.  I continued this process until it filled the entire piece of yarn.  I ended up having 24 flowers on my lei!  

An extension activity would be having students research an assigned country.  They would have to find information on a holiday within that country, and explain how they celebrate the holiday and how art is incorporated within their culture.