Drawing from Description
Overview
Children will look closely at the parts of a small aquatic animal with a listening and drawing activity.
Activity Type
Hands-On
Class Time
40 minutes
Level
Kindergarten
Location
Classroom, Large Space, Outside
Focus Question
-
How do we know living and nonliving things are in the water around us? What do they look like when they are growing?
Enduring Understandings
- Living and nonliving things in Alaska waters come in a great assortment of colors, shapes, and sizes.
- Living things move, grow, and change.
Engage
10 minutes
Hold a small, simple object (toy, block, etc.) in your hand or in a bag and explain that you will describe it without showing it.
The students will draw a picture of it in the air (using their finger as a sky-writer) as they hear words that describe it. Use simple descriptions at first so that everyone is successful: “It is round,” “It has four lines,” “It is smaller than my hand,” etc.
Ask the students to be scientists, using the clues to draw the object and think about what it could be.
Let them know they will be doing a drawing activity, and they are only going to get an oral description so they will have to listen carefully!
Explore
20 minutes
Explain that without looking at a picture, the students will be drawing a creature.
Guide the students through a drawing discovery activity:
Ask everyone to open their science notebook to a clean page. Explain that you will ask students to draw one part at a time of a special creature. The students will have to listen carefully.
Read the drawing directions:
- I have 2 parts. One is big and the other is smaller. They are oval in shape. Draw 2 body parts! (You may provide scaffolding by giving more information—put one oval near the side of your paper, draw another oval so that one side touches the first oval.)
- The small body part has a pair of biting jaws. Draw them. (You can demonstrate with your finger and thumb, moving back and forth.)
- The small body part has 2 pincers. Draw 2 pincers. (You can demonstrate by moving hands and thumbs together, describing the pincers coming out of the small oval.)
- Put tiny bristles on both pincers (little lines).
- The small body part has 4 pairs of walking legs. Draw the 4 pairs of walking legs.
- Each walking leg is armed with claws. Draw claws on each walking leg. (Again, a visual image of fingers shaped to look like claws may be helpful.)
- The large body part has 12 segments. Make 12 segments (lines) on your animal.
Now your creature is complete—does it look like a living animal?
Explain
10 minutes
Have children pair up and share the animals that they drew in their science notebooks.
Then, show the drawing of the pseudoscorpion (they are less than 1/3 of an inch long).
Read a description of the pseudoscorpion from one of these sources:
Utah State University Extension
Description of pseudoscorpions from Penn State College of Agricultural Sciences
If you have the book, The Nature of Southeast Alaska, there is a interesting description of the pseudoscorpion!
Elaborate
Give each student a small drawing of a pseudoscorpion that matches the size of the science notebook. Students can glue this in their science notebook next to their own drawing. Have children compare their drawing to the scientist’s drawing. Some students may go on to label each part or write a short description of the pseudoscorpion.
This activity could be repeated with an animal or plant description that is very common to the local area. Students will have the opportunity to continue to practice listening and drawing skills.
Evaluate
Notice children who are able to draw from oral description, and those who may need more experience with the vocabulary that describes a pseudoscorpion.
Extend
Allow children to practice giving clues to others for drawing.
Teacher Needs
Teacher Prep
Prepare puzzles
Print the photos and description of the pseudoscorpion. Print the small picture.
Compile resources and materials.
Print, copy and fold mini-books.
Prepare class book pages with the words printed out.
Cut, sort and organize textured materials.
Gather, prepare, and organize art materials for murals.
Materials List
- Tagboard or construction paper for puzzles
- Larval to adult marine puzzles
- Larval to adult freshwater puzzles
- Science notebooks
- Resource books, posters, pictures, ID charts, films
- Objects from aquatic environments (shells, rocks, etc.)
- Picture and description of pseudoscorpion
- One mini-book per student
- “Class Book” pages with words printed on them
- A wide variety materials with texture; cloth, plastic, thread, yarn, etc.
- Glue or glue sticks
- Magazines for cutting
- Art materials: large sheets of paper, tempera paints, construction paper, newspaper, paper fasteners (brads), toothpicks, paper bags, markers, wire, and other materials. Children may have ideas of materials to use.
Student Needs
Prior Knowledge
Information from previous lessons with plankton and microscopic creatures. Experience with animals such as class pets, and with a variety of living and nonliving things in the aquatic environment. Experience with glue or glue sticks.
Vocabulary
aquatic, balance, body, bristles, change, claws, color, develop, environment, feel, grow, jaws, legs, living, look, move, mural, oval, non-living, phytoplankton, pincers, segments, shape, size, texture, zooplankton
Related Lessons
InvertebratesStandards
Science GLEs Addressed
- A2, C2, C3