Children's Art Activities - Ashley Bryan
Read his biography
"Dancing Animals"
Based on Beautiful Black Bird
Materials:
Construction paper, crayons or pencil, glue, and scissors
Instructions:
Provide each child with a variety of colored construction paper, a pair of scissors, pencil, and a glue stick. Introduce the project. (Today we’re making a collage with dancing animals just like Ashley Bryan’s birds in Beautiful Blackbird!) Explain that after each step they need to switch colors in construction paper. Students may draw their shapes with their pencil first if they want to. First select the animal you would like to draw. Draw several versions of your animal in a dancing or leaping position. Make sure to draw them on different colored sheets! Make them different sizes as well! After you draw them, cut out your animals! Make a colorful background for your animals. Glue down your background first, and then your animals! When you are finished with your picture, think of a fun song for your animals to dance to. If you like, you can write it down on the back of your picture, or have your mom or dad do so for you. You made your collage more interesting by using a variety of colors and sizes of the same animal!
