Symmetrical Bugs

Oh ya! These are awesome! My second graders learned all about symmetry. We pointed out symmetrical objects in the room, giggled about my own body being cut in half down the middle (morbid), and sketched the second half of symmetrical shapes as a group on the board. We also got a little wild with science by identifying the different parts of bugs, and looking at the grossest bugs I could find on the Ipad. The kids were very into this project from start to finish, and it really shows in their work.

BAM! Is that beautiful or what!? Once we got through the mumbo jumbo, we did a practice bug on a small piece of paper. We started by folding our paper "hot dog style" (vertically), and I demonstrated how we would only draw half of the bug at first, so that we could easily make a mirror image on the other side of the paper. We reviewed the bug parts we learned about and talked about making nice big shapes with a lot of room to color inside. This was especially hard to grasp when the students were drawing the bug's legs. They of course wanted to make super skinny one liner legs, but we talked about why that wouldn't work, and all turned our skinny mini legs into nice big fat disgusting bug legs.

Once we had half of our bugs drawn, we used our pencil and made our lines super thick (This made them easier to see with wittle eyes, and easier to trace with wittle hands.) We folded the paper in half and pushed hard while tracing over the lines. The fact that the lead from our thick lines was actually printing on the other half of the paper was very hard for the students to understand at first, which is why I am very thankful that we did the practice. The students repeated the process on 11"x17" paper, outlined with Sharpie, and went to work coloring with oil pastels (we spent a little time talking about color variety, making things look interesting, and examining magnified bug's color and texture on the internet.)

This one is my absolute favorite. Can't you imagine this framed on a shelf at Target? Maybe a planner cover or on a laptop case or something, who knows? Anyways, once the bugs were covered in the vibrant colors, the students painted the backgrounds with big blobs of watercolor. Everyone shook their salt shaker on them at the end for some fun texture.

I'm so proud of my little kittens for staying focused and interested while pulling through with these. Frustration was sneaking up on us pretty hard at some points, but they've done it, and we can safely move on with our lives. These will be sent home next week. Perfect mothers day gift don't you think?