Education

Grade 2 Lesson: Grizzly Bear Art Using Mediums From Nature

Grade 2 Lesson: Grizzly Bear Art Using Mediums From Nature

Show diversity and respect for harvesting protocols and being mindful to only take what is needed.

Please review full curriculum in the PDF at the bottom of the page to gain full understanding of the lesson and activity.

Education: 

kiɁlawnaɁ Grizzly

June 16, 2025

Lesson:  4 min read

Grades: 2

Subjects: Arts Education

For the Syilx Okanagan peoples, kiɁlawnaɁ (Grizzly Bear) is a significant part of their laws, protocols, and creation stories. Like other species, Grizzly Bear is an important part of our natural world, and its existence reminds us of our responsibilities to the tmxʷulaxʷ (land).

Grizzly Bears and the Syilx people forage and hunt the same foods; therefore, the continued presence of Grizzly Bears is a strong indicator of healthy land and healthy people.

Grizzly Bears Diet

In the interior region, Grizzly Bears forage at a variety of elevations, from valley bottoms to alpine meadows. On the coast of BC, they feed mostly in estuaries and wetlands.

Foraging: to search widely for; a search over an area in order to obtain something, especially food.

Grizzly Bears’ diets consist of a wide variety of green vegetation, herbaceous plants, many types of berries, roots, small ground animals, insects, and salmon. In British Columbia, Grizzly Bears move large distances to find seasonal foods, mates, and denning sites. A Grizzly Bear always makes use of whatever it may find along the journey.

Part One: Foraging for Paintbrush Mediums in Nature

What To Do

1. Take students on a nature walk within your surrounding community or a nearby park.
2. Have students respectfully harvest various plants such as pine needles, flowers, weeds, long grasses, or leaves.
3. Also have the students collect sticks ranging from 15-20 cm in length (about the size of a pencil or paintbrush).

Note: emphasize the Syilx values of respecting the land and practicing reciprocity. Ensure that your students understand the importance of only taking what is needed, and if possible, return the collected items back to the environment. It may also be a good idea to suggest that students share the various plant mediums (i.e., only harvest enough pine needles for one paintbrush that can be shared amongst 2-3 students).

Note: Syilx people put down tobacco onto the land as a gift/acknowledgement for the sacrifice of the plants life to use for us humans.

Indigenous worldviews recognize that plants are living relatives—they have spirit, purpose, and agency. Offering tobacco before harvesting is:

• A way to acknowledge the plant’s life
• A prayer of gratitude for its willingness to give itself
• A request for permission, not a demand

Part Two: Making the Paintbrushes

1. Using the plants/leaves/clippings and sticks the students collected, it is now time to construct the paintbrushes.
2. Using scissors, have the students cut their medium from nature (i.e., pine needles or bush clippings) into an approximately 5cm long bundle.
3. Using tape or twine, have the students (with help) secure their bundle/brush to the stick.

Part Three: Creating Grizzly Bear Art

Supplies Needed:

• Brown/black/white paint
• Self-made paintbrushes
• White cardstock paper
• Googly eyes or buttons
• Black/brown paper for ears, paws, and nose
  (optional).

1. Create demo similar to example pictures. Show students the different strokes each paintbrush creates. Try to produce strokes that mimic the texture of Grizzly Bear fur.
2. Explain to students that Grizzly Bears’ fur ranges in color, from cream, light brown, dark brown, silver tipped, to black. Most often they are light brown.
3. Let students explore and share the paintbrushes they created as a classroom
   community. Offer choice in which brush they choose to use to create their Grizzly. Create opportunity for discussion and rationale for why students chose the brush. Which brush worked best? Which medium from nature created the best fur-like strokes?
4. Students create their Grizzly Bear paintings.

Conclusion

• Return to the concept of foraging; make the connection between Grizzly Bears’
  process of foraging for food and the improvisational nature of art and the creative
  process.
• Emphasize the importance of respecting the land and only taking what is needed.
• Highlight the values of community, diversity, and sharing. Each students’ preference for which paintbrush medium they chose and how their final art piece looks will vary –diversity is a strength in classroom communities, as well as plant and animal communities. Afterall, no Grizzly Bears look exactly the same!