Palisadian-founded Crayon Collection has put together creative activities for kids to do while spending time at home. Here are steps to complete Newspaper Shapes—a project developed by artist Annie Lapin that can be completed on any copy of the Palisadian-Post.
Objective: Students will identify letters within the newspaper. Based on the shapes formed by the connected letters, students will draw a realistic image of an item or animal. They will also explore emotions by adding text to their image that expresses what the image is feeling.
Age: Kindergarten and up
Time: 55 minutes
Material: Newspaper, crayons
Focus: Literacy, visual arts (line, shape, space, emotion)
Core standards: Common Core: Language – Print many upper and lowercase letters
Common Core: Reading – Follow words from left to right, top to bottom, and page by page.
Visual Arts: Creative Expression – Use geometric shapes/forms (circle, triangle square) in a work of art
Opening (five minutes):
Ask about students’ experience with the newspaper: What is a newspaper? Why do people read the newspaper? Distribute a full newspaper page with text on it to each student. Ask students to get five different colored crayons to start.
Instruction and guided practice (15 minutes):
Step 1: As you look through the newspaper, circle every capital “A” with your crayon that you see. Try to circle at least five total.
Step 2: Next, study the page and connect the circled “A” letters to one another to create an image of an animal, person, plant or tree. (Ideally students draw something living that could have an emotion).
Step 3: Now, color in your image using crayons and add details to enhance and transform it. What did you draw?
Work Time (30 minutes):
Help students find shapes and color in their artwork.
Closing (five minutes):
With a partner, ask students to share and describe their image.
Extension:
Second to fifth grade: Ask students to study their image (animal, person or other living thing) and think of what the image would say if it could talk. Next, ask students to add a thought bubble above their image and write what their image wants to say. For example, if you drew a rabbit, write a thought bubble over the rabbit that expresses how the rabbit is feeling or what they might want. Example: “I am a rabbit. I am hungry and would do anything for a carrot!”
Send a photo of your finished product to mypost@palipost.com for a chance to be featured in an upcoming edition of the paper!
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