Weekly Overview

Weekly Project Supplies:

Wooden base (gessoed)
Dino plastic figures (gessoed)
Plastic eggs (gessoed)
Canvas panel
Card-stock, tissue paper (fire colors & vegetation colors), moss, tacky glue, model magic, small uncoated paper plates, glitter glue, fossilized photo examples, toilet paper rolls, googly eyes, dinosaur themed coloring sheets

NOTE: Does not include stations supplies – see Friday.

Help students find a seat.

Show each student their markers. Provide one coloring page, and one 11 x 17 sheet of blank copy paper so they can get started making artwork. They can choose either paper to start work on.

NOTE: Encourage students to keep working with one page for as long as possible, asking them what they can add to it (otherwise some will go through many pages in a very short time).

Once everyone is settled, and has done at least a couple of minutes of artwork, explain the rules to the name game.

“We’re going to play a name game! If you’re not finished, you’ll have time later to work more on the coloring page or drawing you started.”

The name game is played to make sure that everyone is familiar with each other’s name. Explain the rules: The the person who starts the game simply just states their name before it gets passed on to the next person who does their best to remember the name(s) that came before them.Then, they introduce themselves and pass it on to the next person. It’s ok for the teacher to remind a player of someones name if they get stuck. The goal is to see how many names each person can remember in order as we go around the class room. This is just a fun challenge to see who can impress the class be remembering the most names! 

 To demonstrate how the game works your helper can “start” by introducing themselves and then annoying that its the teachers turn who states the helper’s name and then their own. You may even want to do a few practice rounds to make sure everyone understands the game.

While the teacher shows the class the finished canvas panel example from the finished DINOrama, the helper should be passing out canvas panels, water tubs, brushes, paper towels, as well as wet watercolors and mixing trays.

 “It’s time to make the background! You are all getting a canvas they you’re going put a background, mid ground, and foreground onto.”

It’s very important to point out the differences between the elements of the painted demo. The foreground is made up of watercolored cutouts of plants and other objects, the mid ground is done with acrylic on top of the background.

We’ll be starting the background first.

“We’re going to be mixing up colors to make the background of our prehistoric habitat! use lots of water on your brush to paint different colors that you can use to show the time of day, and the weather in your background. We’re just going to be painting what the sky looks like for this step- you get to add more in a bit. when you want to change colors remember to WIPE WASH WIPE your brush!”

Explain how we’re going to draw pieces of our foreground before we cut them out and paint them. These will get glued onto our background after we come back from our break outside.

“Think about what you want to see up close near your dinosaur in your foreground. Is your dino near a tree and some bushes? Maybe some rocks or some hills. Do your best to draw with soft pencil lines, like you’re tickling the paper with the pencil: tickle lines!”3.2 cut and paint 

15 minutes

This is a good time to check to see if anyone forgot to bring a snack so that you can provide one from the library. (i.e. goldfish, fruit snacks, granola bar)

Go over a few rules that help set expectations for camper’s behavior. 

“Before you’re allowed to play you must have your snack finished and all trash thrown away. Also, no one is allowed past the orange cone line.”

This is to ensure that no one is in danger of being hit by a car and it also helps keep campers away from the wooded area, where there is poison ivy and lots of bugs.

Campers enjoy a mini play break after finishing their snacks.

After snack kids are allowed to run around, draw with chalk, play card games etc. Be on the lookout for any antagonistic behavior and be ready to remind students of the rules if needed. 

There will be large trash cans with lids by the picnic tables that should be fully covered after use and emptied at least weekly (ideally every Friday). 

Before lining back up to head inside make sure that everyone has taken the time to look around to check to see if any trash was missed. once everyone has all of their things they brought outside with them you can go ahead and lead them back inside to continue onto the remaining projects of the day. 

Students make it back to their seats awaiting further instruction.

Now that the cutouts have dried we can use tacky glue to stick them onto the background. Both the teacher and helper should be making the rounds with glue to help kids stick on their foreground elements, it is especially important to make sure that no one glues their cut out below the where the canvas panel sits in the groove on its base. It’s useful to have the panels in the wood bases as kids are sticking on their cutouts for this reason. colored tissue paper is also great to add texture. They can cut and crumple small pieces of colors of their choice so they can glue them onto and around their cutouts they made in step 3.

Once students are wrapping this up you can go ahead and talk about the final part of our main project today: the Midground.

Pass out water, paper towels and brushes as the helper helps kids who are finishing gluing into smocks.

“The reason why you’re all wearing smocks is because we’re about to use the big kid paint again! Now that we’ve painted both the background and the foreground its time to decide what you want in your middle ground. You could paint distant flying creatures, mountains, or even a volcano! Remember, things that are far away look a lot smaller than they really are.”

Make sure to check plans from Monday so that you and the helper can work with each camper to figure out what colors they need for their mid ground elements. Once kids get their colors they can go ahead and paint in the background. If anyone gets frustrated about something they painted assure them that once the paint is dry they can easily go back over and change anything that they don’t like. Keep everyone encouraged and excited by asking questions about what they’re painting.

As students finish painting have them wipe wash wipe their brushes really well before they take them to the sink so that they can be super washed later. Since the panels are completed for today they can be scooped up and swapped with the dino portraits from yesterday. campers then clean up their area so they can prepare for the extra project of the day: model magic fossils.

Students gather around the teacher to discuss fossils.

You can use and iPad, a book or, if you have any, real fossils to show students and get a discussion going.

“Fossils are rocks that, over a very long time, replace the bones of all sorts of different creatures from prehistoric times. Scientists use fossils to try and imagine what creatures that are long extinct looked like, how they acted, and even what they ate! Today we’re going to look at fossils and pretend that we are scientists. In a little bit you’re going to get some clay that you can use to either sculpt a fossil- or sculpt an ancient creature you think one of the fossils we looked at may have came from!” 

Give each student a glob of model magic the size of your fist along with some parchment paper and a clay tool.

Make sure that everyone knows that they need to keep their clay on or hovering above the parchment paper at ALL times. It’s important that it doesn’t touch the dirty table so that it doesn’t get gross.

Students enjoy sculpting their fossils/ creatures as teachers go around the room answering and asking questions while helping sculpt if help is needed. Early finishers can use water colors and brushes to stain the model magic to create an interesting marbled look. Markers can be used as well. 

Students clean up as soon as the finish sculpting/ when time is up:

• All brushes used are brought to the sink
• Used paper towels are thrown away
• Every box has all materials back inside and lid on top
• Anything going home is in a neat stacked pile/ Lunch boxes are in hand

Students form a neat line and head on outside for lunch/pickup.