shape people

These crazy-colored shape people are done by first grade students. They are an outgrowth of the bubble people I do with Kindergarten students. The goal is simply to move children away from drawing stick people and toward drawing people with whole bodies.

I introduce the lesson by having students name the shape of the head (oval, not circle), and talking about the elbow and knee as joints that join the upper and lower parts of arms and legs. We move our arms and legs in different poses. I then demonstrate the light drawing of a bubble person on a chart paper, using a pencil. I show how to outline the outside of the entire body shape with a marker, as this is a tricky thing for some students.

Students draw bubble people in pencil, one bubble at a time: head, neck, body, two-part arms, and two-part legs. I talk them through the body parts so that they don't leave anything out. Then they outline with marker around the outside of the "bubbles" to create a stylized person shape. They erase the pencil lines and "crazy-color" the resulting shape. If there's still time, they do a second one, either smaller or larger than the first. For this activity, we skip doing faces or other additions to the people shapes, and concentrate on bright colors and/or patterns. Some children have a hard time outlining the entire outside of the shape and outline each bubble instead, or cross through joints. I try to stay close and help them with their second drawing.

Other lessons in this activity are how to use and care for the markers (cap on the end while drawing, cap snapped shut when finished to preserve ink), how to use your empty hand to hold the paper still while outlining, and how to erase (just the line, not all over the paper), When there is fifteen minutes left (classes are one hour), I tell students that whatever they are doing right now, it is the last thing they will do: If drawing bubbles, they will outline and erase and stop. If they are outlining, they will finish and stop. If they are coloring, they will finish and stop. Some student work, then will have one or two "colored-in" shape people and one "blank" one. After putting away materials, students walk around the room looking at everyone's work. I ask them to look for something that is completely different from everyone else's. After they've seen everyone's work, they share what they've noticed.

Sometimes I display these in a long line across the top of the white board or over a window. Looks great!

bubble people

I have a pet peeve: stick people. So I thought... well... might as well start at the beginning. I came across a people drawing lesson in "Talking, Drawing,Writing" by Martha Horn and Mary Ellen Giacobbe, a book about art and writing that starts with using ovals for every body part. My first idea was to do this lesson with all the students and then have the Kindergartners draw clothes on them, the first graders fill the ovals with patterns, and the second graders do elaborate warm/cool compositions by filling the people ovals with warm or cool parallel lines and then doing a background in the opposite color. Heh. I was a little overambitious on the second grade idea. We were lucky to get the person filled with lines, although a few students did manage to go on to a second bubble person, as they came to be known.

This lesson, for all three grade levels, started with a "loosening up" exercise with a large sheet of white paper on which they practiced drawing dots, circles, ovals of different sizes and shapes, and assorted lines. Then Kindergartners had a read aloud - "From Head to Toe" by Eric Carle (which included much wiggling, clapping, stomping, and kicking) - and everyone learned how to use ovals of different sizes, shapes, and lengths for all the main body parts. Kindergartners were asked to color their bubble people any way they wanted, and as they finished, to draw more on their practice paper. First graders filled theirs with dots and lines, using two primary colors, and those who had time were able to mount them on the third primary color. One creative first grader decided to mount his standing on one hand, and was careful to remind me that it goes "this way." :-) Second graders drew a contour line around their bubble person to define the shape. They then filled the complete shape with warm or cool colored parallel lines. If they finished one, they were asked to draw another on the same paper and to fill it with lines using the same colors.

Everyone did a great job! During sharing we looked at how different they all were, and students were able to talk about what was hard to do, what they liked about their bubble people.

Now... if it will just stick, there will be less stick people in the world! :-)
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