Camouflaged

Creatures

Making Murals with Young Students

The Integration

Science

Objective 2 Living things change and depend upon their environment to satisfy their basic needs.

Visual Art

Standard 1.V.CR.1: Engage collaboratively in exploration and imaginative play with art materials, and use observation and investigation in preparation for making a work of art.

Language Arts

Reading: Informational Text Standard 10 With prompting and support, read informational texts appropriately complex for grade 1.

Writing Standard 2 Write informative/explanatory texts in which they name a topic, supply some facts about the topic, and provide some sense of closure.

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The Process

• Read about animals and how they use camouflage to hunt or hide.
• Choose a habitat to build.
• Divide into groups to create the parts of the habitat.
• Work together to assemble the habitat on the wall.
• Students invent a predator or prey animal to live in that habitat using camouflage.
• Students create their camouflage animal matching the colors to the correct spot on the mural.
• Students write about their camouflaged animal.

Helpful tips

Plan for this to last a week and spread the work out into chunks.

Day 1: Read and discuss the purposes for camouflage. Show lots of examples.

Day 2: Plan out and make the parts of the habitat, and assign groups of students to be in charge of each element of it (Zoey, Joseph, and Ben will make the flowers, Katie, Derek, and Sam will do the ferns… etc). *Cut out all the parts.

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Day 3: Assemble the habitat. I pinned and hot glued paper to the wall, then hot glued the parts of the mural on with direction from the students

Day 4: Create creatures that use camouflage to hunt or hide in the habitat you have built.

Day 5: Write about the experience, the habitat, the camouflaged creature.

*I have found that having older students volunteer to help cut out items during recess can speed up the process considerably.

Supplies List

Large sheet of bulletin board paper to build the mural on

Command strips, tacks, pins, hot glue, or some other means of attaching the mural to the wall temporarily and for attaching parts to the whole

Construction paper, bulletin board paper, or other colorful paper for building parts of the mural

Oil pastels (or paint if you prefer)

Scissors

Possible Alternative Mural Topics

Kindergarten : Standard 2 Earth and Space Science. Objective 3 Compare changes in weather over time. Observe and record that weather changes occur from day‐to‐day and weather patterns occur from season to season.

Second Grade : Standard 4 Life Science. Objective 2 Identify basic needs of living things (plants and animals) and their abilities to meet their needs.

Third Grade : Standard 2 Students will understand that organisms depend on living and nonliving things within their environment. Objective 2 Describe the interactions between living and nonliving things in a small environment.