In Mrs. Percival's first grade, we have been working on an action research project. The goal for this art lesson was to help the children with their writing skills with an art correlation. To do this, Mrs. Percival reviewed the basic parts of a sentence before they came to a special art class. When the class came to art, we did a brief review and each child selected a postcard of an animal they wanted to draw. We used Crayola Color sticks and I gave them a basic lesson in observational drawing. This is a difficult skill, but the children did a great job! First they drew the basic shape of the animal, added the details and colored in a background. We started running out of time, so towards the end of class, Mrs. Percival and I helped each child as they wrote a sentence about their animal. The goal was for each child to write a complete sentence using a noun, a verb, at least one adjective and proper punctuation. Some of the sentences are more complex than others.
The little bobcat is climbing a log.
The fuzzy wolf is howling.
The little raccoon is studying the meadow.
The huge eagle is soaring in the sky.
The little baby fox is licking.
The huge brown elk is bugling.
This was a fun project and we hope it gave them a BOOST in their understanding of sentence structure. The children will be taking a standardized test soon, and we are interested to see if this activity might have helped. We will let you know what the results are!
