Today's Classroom Activities :

Stories and Illustrations

Parts to a Whole
Reading/Art Separate a story into sections before the children have read it. Give one section to each child to illustrate. Then read the whole story together showing illustrations as the section comes up. Would the illustrations have been different if the whole story were shared first? How? Why? What does this tell us about how stories are put together?

Understanding How Illustrations Can "Tell" the Story
Read aloud a version of Jack and the Beanstalk without showing the students any pictures. Then have the students choose three scenes to illustrate by hand.

Wild Things
Students implement textures and patterns in creating an imaginary "Wild Thing". The book and illustrations in Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak can serve as inspiration.

Words & Pictures as Visual Images
Students will be able to create several solutions to what happened first and what happens next in response to looking at a picture. They will also be able to write a story describing your idea for your picture response. Be able to use descriptive language and color words in your sentences and develop ideas for a visual description of what you have written.

Paper Art
Teach students the artistic styles that children's book illustrators employ when using paper in illustrations such as cut paper collage, employing die-cut pages for effect, and using objects as a stencil for relief printing.

Colorful Creative Writing Rebus
Student will read rebus samples from various sources, write poems about colorful places, including detailed descriptions of people, scenery, and objects, and finally create small, relevant illustrations to communicate meaning using symbols in place of words.