Inventive Animal Creations (K-2nd Grades)

One fabulous Kindergarten artist!

I had a great teachable moment with my youngest Mind Move Make students.  I accidentally left the portfolio with all their artwork at home, and many of them were excited to complete the rainforest creations from the previous weeks!  After explaining this unfortunate fact to my students I added that, "even grownups make mistakes."  They were extremely resilient and quick to forgive my forgetfulness.  We did make art during this class, but it was an impromptu idea that I'll describe a little later!

I was excited about the movement portion of the class, and was eager to share the activity with the children.  All the students enjoyed the opportunity to create their own movements for the rainforest animals a couple classes ago, so I developed "flash cards" of all the animals we've learned about.  The students got into pairs, received a collection of four flashcards with pictures of rainforest animals, and created their own movement routines using the pictures.  It was fun to see how different each group's movement pieces were.  One group was very focused on telling a story with their movements.  Other groups mixed yoga poses I've taught them with their own notions of how the animals move.

For me, the best part was being able to listen in on the planning of their mini-performances!  It is so interesting to watch the exchange of ideas, and the give-and-take that comes with collaborative work.  After each group worked out their movement-based performance, they had the opportunity to present their creations to one another.

So, back to the forgotten artwork!  For my spur of the moment idea, I explained that the students could either draw one rainforest animal of their choosing, or they could combine two or three animals together to create a new hybrid creature!  I think everyone chose option #2 and let their imaginations go wild.  Some children completely created a one-of-a-kind animal the likes of whom I've never seen in any book or zoo!  Others combined identifiable parts of various rainforest animals together to develop something new.  So my mistake provided an opportunity for a unique exploration of the imagination.  Here are some of the gorgeous, inventive works:

In progress...

Completed drawing!  This student's art reminds me of the work of Japanese artist Chiho Aoshima.

Bonus Feature: this is one of Chiho Aoshima's works