Creating Life-Sized Animals

Today was the big day that the kids have been working toward and waiting for!  We started working on our life-sized animals as a way of "Going Public" at our upcoming Exploration Celebration.
After each group turned in their measurements for their research club animal, they received paper that matched the length/width of their animal.
The first stage was to sketch out their animal.  As I modeled with a manatee, they were told to "Think big, draw big, think fat, and draw fat."

Komodo dragon

sea otter

coyote

bison

The next step is painting and adding details once the base paint is dry.  I didn't get many pictures, as it's a busy time with 18 extremely excited kids painting!  The animals are starting to look like animals!

Next, we cut out our animals.

bison

sea otter

Bengal tiger

 The kids discussed plans for the background habitat of their animals and requested colors.
They glued their animals on the background paper and worked on designing the habitat of their animal. We went through a lot of gluesticks!!!

The next step was working on labeling our posters.

We met in our research clubs to decide who was going to teach each topic.

Then we used our best handwriting to record facts that we will add to our animal posters.

It feels like we have performed a minor miracle in Room 408 this week!

We can't wait to display our life-sized animals at the upcoming Exploration Celebration on April 16th.  Hope to see you there!