Family Portraits
The art teacher at my school was inspired by the vibrant family portrait on the last page of this book. We brainstormed a way to have students create something similar. This project will start in the art room, move to the library media center, and then return to the art room.
Equipment needed: computer, scanner, color printer
Software needed: drawing software
Supplies needed: card stock or other heavy printing paper, colored pencils or pastels, black markers
1. Students bring in a family photo. They create a contour drawing of their family. The art teacher at my school suggested providing oval tracers for faces, not so students will trace them, but so that they will know the approximate size to make the heads on their portraits.
2. Students use a black marker to darken the outside lines, making sure to “close” all lines.
3. Library media specialist scans in drawings and uses a flash drive or some other mechanism to make them available to students.
4. Students open drawing software and import their scanned image into the drawing program.
5. Students use the paint bucket tool to fill their drawing with color and texture, leaving the faces blank.
6. Students print their picture on to special paper.
7. Students finish their portraits in the art room where they add facial details and coloring.
8. Students create a frame for their portrait, including some calligraphy.
9. Art teacher and library media specialist proudly display student work!
Best Day Ever Comic
Third and forth grade students created comics about their best day ever using KidPix and Comic Life.
Equipment needed: computer and color printer
Software needed: drawing software and Comic Life
1. Students brainstorm their best day ever. Who was there? Where were you? What were you doing?
2. Students use drawing software to illustrate their best day ever. Students could also illustrate this by hand and their drawing could be scanned to make it an electronic image.
3. Demonstrate exporting a drawing and dragging it into iPhoto.
4. Students export their drawing as a jpeg image and import it into iPhoto.
5. Demonstrate Comic Life, how to open it, set up a page, drag in an image, add speech bubbles and fancy lettering.
6. Students open Comic Life, drag in their illustration, and add speech bubbles and fancy lettering.
7. Print and display!
Animating the life cycle of a plant
Second grade students study plants at our school. As a culminating activity they create a KidPix animation demonstrating their knowledge of how a plant starts as a seed, grows and flowers. The same process could yield an animation about trees.
Equipment needed: computer, color printer (optional) and projector
Software needed: drawing software such as KidPix or drawing software and presentation software (Keynote or PowerPoint)
1. Outline criteria for the animation.
2. Demonstrate “building” on a drawing. Start with a picture of the ground and sky and save as “plant 1.” Add a seed and save as “plant 2.” Continue in this fashion for a few more slides, asking students what else they need to add and saving in the same fashion.
3. Students begin working on their own pictures, building on each slide.
4. When all students have finished their slides, demonstrate putting them together into a slide show. Demonstrate changing the timing and the transitions between slides. For an animation, you want no transitions.
5. Assist students as they develop their slide shows and turn them into animations.
6. Print slide shows as a comic and allow students to cut and reassemble them to make a flip book.
8. Slide shows can be exported in the form of a QuickTime movie to be shared online or on a DVD.
