Wednesday, February 20, 2013

if I ran the zoo

I was looking for a quick intro to primary colors for my first graders, before we got into the exciting color-mixing projects... and was inspired by Dr. Seuss' book "If I Ran the Zoo". It obviously lends itself to super creativity as he dreams up what animals he would put in his zoo... but, also, the illustrations are in primary colors! Perfect! 

                      

So, we started by reading the book (or, most of the book... it's a bit long, so after the first half, we kind of just flipped through and looked at the different animals he found). We talked about different ways to invent a new animal - combine parts of two or more animals that we already know, change something major about an animal that already exists, or just make up something new entirely! Then students got to brainstorming - they spent the rest of class using free draw paper to draw as many ideas as they could for their animals! 


The next class, we chose our favorite and drew that animal really large on a white piece of paper. Just like Dr. Seuss, we outlined in black, and colored very simply using the primary colors!


























What animal would you find if you ran the zoo?!

6 comments:

  1. Mentioned you and your blog in a post today! So glad you are part of the blogging world now!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I often did this with my 1st or 2nd graders: I put names of animals in a bucket and they each pulled out 2 names, and then had to create a new animal from them, inventing a name for it, and combining the features of both animals. They would also create an environment appropriate for the animal to live in. I love the drawings they came up with. Your idea reminds me of this lesson. Nice book tie-in!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I have a similar thing in my "art adventures" drawers for free time! I love how you have them create the environment too! Thanks so much!

      Delete
  3. I'm starting a Mondrian project today with my second graders--they fill in the space of their animals with Mondrian-like grids... I always refer to this project as our 'zoo' but never thought to include the Seuss book. Thanks for the idea! Very cute animals! :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I've done something similar before in the past! So cute when they're done - thanks for reminding me of that one! :)

      Delete

What do you think?