October 15-16 was our 75th Kansas Art Educator Assciation conference. I just had to come home and try this project with my third graders.
Sondra H. does a Happy Birthday _____ theme with each school during the year. This past year she used Salvidor Dali as her theme artist. She had cool projects and books that really were fun. But my favorite was this one--
I cut 18x12 sheets of white paper in half lengthwise so they are now 6x18. We fold in half twice to make four even sections. On the back of the top section the students put their name, the second part they wrote 'head'; third 'body or torso'; last 'legs and feet'. Now with the front facing you have them draw a head in the proper section of any type, animal, monster, human, alien whatever they can think of. Their imagination is the only thing holding them back. Then fold the top two sections back so they can't be seen and have them swap. Now the kids draw a body, bird, bat, dinosaur, alien, you name it. Fold it back again and swap to draw the legs and feet. The fun is to not look until the whole thing is done.
I gave them 3-4 minutes for each drawing, but that is really just an estatmate, I watched them to see how much they got done and warned them about 30 seconds before we stopped to trade. We all really had fun with this assignment. It was totally creative and fun. I told them now that we have done it once the next time will be even better! So some day when we don't anything too much to do we can do it again, or even a sub could lead this and do it with them!
