Rooster's Off to See the World!
My Instagram friend @show_me_the_monet taught an Eric Carle unit a few years back. She went through his greatest hits and then made gorgeous artwork based on his stories with her ALL of her students- every grade level. It was Ah-mazing! There was one project that jumped out at me and I had to make it with my tiny humans. Based on Rooster's Off To See The World, and fitting in perfectly with our farm and fall unit, we created a mixed media rooster. And away we go...
Materials:
+ good white paper, I'm using Canson Mixed Media paper
+ pencil
+ eraser
+ sharpie
+ crayons
+ painted paper strips
+ scissors
+ glue
I introduced them to Rooster's Off To See The World at the beginning of class. After hearing the story I had my tiny humans follow a directed drawing lesson. I prefer the wonky work of their own imagination and hands but I wanted something that actually looked like a rooster that day. A choice was made. We went with it. After the ten-ish minute lesson they traced their work in sharpie. Trace and erase I say. They follow with gusto!
Then we needed to color in our adorable rooster! Eric Carle uses a variety of hues in his collages, so I showed the PreK kiddos how to mix and blend colors with the crayons. They needed to color in the whole rooster- everything! Those who finished early cleaned up their materials and could go sit on the carpet and read a book.
When every rooster was colored in I gathered all my little artists 'round. Using painted paper from the beginning of the year, which I had cut into random strips, I showed them how they could cut the end to make each piece of paper look like a feather. Start large and fill up the back of the rooster. We talked about overlapping and adding smaller and smaller "feathers" to our beautiful rooster. I encouraged them to use even the scraps to create small feathers. Here is a sample gallery of our roosters. What a beautiful project for these early fall days! Happy making.
