Awesome Owls, lesson 2 and a change in plans (life on a cart!)

For our third day of Awesome Owls, first graders made a small owl out of Model Magic.  I got the idea from Pinterest!  I thought it would be a nice way to review and reinforce our theme.  First grade would have the chance to learn about and make sculpture, and we got to discuss real vs. implied texture.

When I packed up my cart, I included navy blue 9 x 12" construction paper, yellow squares, and black strips.  The idea was that students would use the navy blue as their placemat, then use it as the background for a constructed home for their clay owl.  I pictured a black tree silhouette and a yellow moon.  I even thought about how I would teach making the tree... V's and Y's..V's & Y's! I wasn't prepared for when I asked the first graders where their owl would live.  First student said a tree, a second said a nest, then they started getting creative. "A house, like a real house with a TV!" "underground!" "my bedroom!"  "a house IN the tree!"  So, I scrapped my step-by-step boring construction of a tree and moon, and let the kids draw whatever kind of habitat they wanted with pencil.  We traced with Sharpie and colored with regular crayons Had I been in my classroom I would of used color sticks, or construction paper crayons, however the regular crayons gave it a nice dark night feeling.  First graders understood that their owls are most active at night.