5th grade Koru paintings

I found this lesson last December when looking for Australian/New Zealand art projects. I saw photos of these on the homepage of an elementary school in New Zealand and while there were no lesson plans I really thought they were beautiful. (In the year sense the original author of this lesson has put the project on kinder art here is her lesson) The label said they were Koru paintings. What the heck is a Koru I though. It turn out it is the Maori word for a baby fern, which represents new life and rebirth. Anyway I did my version of this on large 12"x14" paper and lead my students though a guided drawing of the Koru using the idea of parallel lines. ( I had my students do a small practice drawing first and look at photos of baby ferns). My 5th grade students had no problem with the DRAWING part. I had them draw some double lines inside their basic shapes to make the layers of design. Then I had students choose two to three colors plus white tempera paint. Students carefully painted in their drawings. The next class the students went over the pencil lines with black paint. I love how these turned out. In the photos these are accompanied by 4th grade dot paintings of aboriginal symbols.