Sunday, November 24, 2013

Snowballs

We read Lois Ehlert's book, Snowballs.  The class loved Ehlert's clever use of 'random' materials, layered on paper, to bring a snow family to life.  Snow baby and snow dog were the obvious favourites, until the sun came out and snow baby melted.  Snow dog was all but a puddle.  We talked about the technique of collaging and perspective.  The very first pages inspired our project.  The story starts with a question, "Do you think birds know when it's starting to snow?"

The cardinals were created by cutting pieces of pizza (triangles) out of a saucy red pizza!  The kids used small bowls and rolls of masking tape to trace circles on red paper, before carefully cutting them out.  Next, they made a dot in the middle of the circle and cut out triangular wedges.  Finally, the pieces were overlapped and very thoughtfully placed together to create the birds - body, wings, tail feathers and head.  Add a beak, details with a marker, some freshly fallen snow (hole punchers, too much fun) and voila, winter wonderland.