Looking for something to do with all those Christmas cards in January? I have a project for you. I should say that this project gets harder and harder each year due to all the photo cards we now receive, but thanks to my mother-on-law, it lives to see another year. We started back to school after break on a Thursday (ugh), I wasn't feeling the whole jump right back in where we left off thing, that is what Monday is for, so I thought of a few creative things we could do to get through these 2 days. I started by tearing the fronts off of Christmas cards that have pretty winter scenes or pictures that my students can copy. Then, each student picks a card and glues it to a piece of white construction paper. This is where the "work" comes in. They are to continue the picture onto the paper as if the card never ended. For some of them the card they picked was really easy and lent itself to a continuation with no problem, that is good for the kids that don't really like to draw that much. Others take a little more talent and is perfect for the super artsy kid that loves to draw. The whole ideas is that you can't tell where the card stops and the paper starts. Tricky, yes, impossible, nah! They love to do this project and you can always hear a pin drop when they are working. I make them use colored pencils or crayons because they look better (not to mention I despise markers). Once they finished, I had them write a story about what was going on in their scene. They used a story map to write a rough draft then wrote their story which I will proofread, they will do a final copy and then hopefully I can hang them side by side in the hall! It is a lot of fun and a good way to incorporate some writing into art and ease us back into the school routine.
FYI - Typed this blog weeks ago but for some reason was just now able to add the pictures, sheesh, computers!
The child that did this picture wrote the most heartwarming story about a hunter that came across this deer and thought it was so beautiful he just couldn't shoot it so he just stood there and watched. Very sweet.
