I love this activity in particular, because it brings science into art. All of the different examples below use hands and feet to create specific animal pictures. While this is a fun craft activity, you can relate it back to science in many ways.
Children can talk about the colors of different animals, and look at how some of them have different colors or patterns on different parts of their body. This can lead to discussions on animal adaptations.
When designing your animal, children will have to think about the anatomy of their animal. They will have to look at structure and patterns to understand how they can use something like a hand or foot to represent an animal's body. They may have to add extra parts of the body by drawing or painting. This helps children think about the different parts of an animal's body and can start basic conversations about anatomy. For example, the bee below has wings. What other animals have wings? Do cats have wings? Why not? Children can talk about how animals are classified into groups based on different types of body anatomy.
An addition to any picture would be a background. Children can add more to their pictures by creating a background for their animal to live in. Children might look up where the animal lives in the wild and try to recreate the environment by adding in native plants and other animals that their animal might interact with. They can also learn about animal behavior by creating a background that shows their animal doing something.
Happy creating! Activities like these can help foster student interest in science, and allow children to use their creativity to help them question and learn about the world!
#science #distancelearning #scienceteacher #education #art #painting #crafts #scienceconversations #talktoyourkidsaboutscience #parentteachers #animals #biology #environmentalscience #anatomy #animalbehavior #adaptations #visuallearning #elementaryscience #preschoolscience
