Pre-K:
We wanted to revisit the Lines of Animals unit with a 3D twist. What would the students notice about the animals if they recreated them in clay? What stories will come out of the clay figures?
Kindergarten:
Kindergarten is studying changes. They are learning about the butterfly life cycle and Ms. Holden and I were brainstorming about how to create a project that would be more expressive and have deeper meaning than the traditional methods of creating butterflies. We decided to go with a big landscape mural and acetate caterpillars, chrysalis, and butterflies.
The students chose a landscape photograph to study. It was of a meadow in Springtime. I showed them how to look at the lines for the horizon line and we talked about space and how the trees look far away. The students drew the necessary lines and then we talked about an underpainting. They painted the sky and a dark green for the grass. They then took turns adding the details, looking very closely at the photograph.
After that, each student chose a caterpillar, chrysalis and butterfly to draw. At first, I noticed a lot of students were drawing simple, symbolic butterflies. I showed them Austin's Butterfly, the Ron Berger video that was shown to the teachers when we first started project based learning, and then asked them to try another draft. Some students got it on the first try and others took multiple drafts, but the butterfly drawings have a sophistication to them and this project looks nothing like an ordinary butterfly life cycle project!
