Kinder 'Wild Things'

 

On the last day of art I had my students watch an animated version of Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are.  I asked my students to take notice of what shapes and features the wild things were made of  and after the video I recorded a list of parts that included yellow eyes, feathers, horns, fangs, tails, scales, and claws.  Following the video I did a short demo on how to draw a wild thing by using basic shapes like ovals, circles, triangles, etc.  I then set them loose on 12 x 18" black paper and using crayola construction paper crayons, they dove right in.

 The drawing part took about 15 minutes, although some students pronounced "I'm done!" within about 4 minutes of drawing...However, I wouldn't let them off the hook with quick 'scribble-scrabble' coloring,  and made them take their time and color their monsters in slowly and completely to the best of their ability. For the last 10 minutes or so I explained how to rotate tables to switch colors and let them paint over their drawing using Sax brand glitter paint.  Each table had one of four colors including gold, purple, green, and blue (which were what I used) and 4 brushes.

  Students had about 2 minutes at each table with the paints and presto, finished wild things in 40 minutes :)

Just on an additional note...I like the crayola construction paper crayons, they come out a little brighter and opaque on both light and dark colored construction papers.  I'm so-so on the glitter paint.  It's semi transparent so I think it's good for painting over already colored areas like I did in this project, but I wouldn't use it by itself on unless a I wanted a semi-transparent color with small flecks of glitter throughout.