Letter Styles
Primary 4 · Creative Arts
Letter Styles
Lesson 4 of 4
16 min
Let's begin
Niyonzima's class is making posters for umuganda day. His title is KEEP OUR VILLAGE CLEAN. "My letters are neat," he says, "but my poster looks boring." His friend Umutoni points at the first letter. "Make that one special," she says.
Long ago, before printing machines, books were copied by hand. Artists often made the first letter of a page big and decorated, filled with leaves, flowers or animals. Readers could find the start of each part quickly, and the page looked beautiful.
You can decorate a letter with everything you learned in this unit and in Motif Design.
These four decorated capital letters were printed in Europe more than 500 years ago. The artist cut the lines into a metal plate, covered it with ink and pressed paper onto it. The letters are R, S, T and U.
Tip
Short message, middle first, big to small, dark on light
Stand back two big steps and look. If you can read it easily, your poster works.
Try each one first, then tap Show answer to check.
Why did old books have a big decorated first letter?
Answer: To make the page beautiful and to show readers where each part begins.
Name one motif you could use to fill a decorated letter.
Answer: Any one: dots, zigzags, leaves, flowers, diamonds, spirals.
The title WASH YOUR HANDS has 13 letters and 2 spaces: 15 characters in all. Which character goes in the centre of the page?
Answer: The 8th character, which is the U in YOUR. It has 7 characters before it and 7 after it.
Keza writes light yellow letters on white paper. What is the problem?
Answer: There is not enough contrast, so the words are hard to read.
Make it: Design a poster for your class. Decorate the first letter of the title.
What you learned today
Sources and credits
The rest of the lesson, the diagrams and the exercises (Try it yourself and the practice questions) are written by Ganzaa.
Quick check
Put the steps for decorating a letter in order.
Tap the cards in the right order.
