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?!