Discover Australian wildlife and Aboriginal dot paintings. Combine three fun art techniques together to make colorful animal images.

• 1.

  Fold two or three pieces of white paper in half. Open. Cover your craft area with recycled newspaper. On one paper at a time, paint on one side of the fold with Crayola Fingerpaints. Choose at least two colors to make each background.

• 2.

  While the paint is still wet, fold the papers. Rub gently on the unpainted side to transfer the paint. Open the paper and see the mirror (blotto) image. Notice how colors mix together. Add more paint and repeat the process to change the image or details.

• 3.

  When the symmetrical shape is complete, dip just one finger into fingerpaint. Apply dots of color to create patterns that surround or overlap the background. Lay flat to dry.

• 4.

  Choose an Australian animal, or imaginatively combine parts of several of these animals. From your dry paintings, cut out animal parts to make a unique creature.

• 5.

  Glue the Bumpy Blotto Beast on construction paper. Paint on more dots if necessary to complete your Beast.

Standards

• LA: Read and comprehend informational texts, including history/social studies, science, and technical texts, at the high end of the grade level text complexity band independently and proficiently.
• LA: Engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher led) with diverse partners on grade level topics and texts, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly.
• LA: Ask and answer questions about information from a speaker, offering appropriate elaboration and detail.
• LA: Determine or clarify the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning word and phrases based on grade level reading and content, choosing flexibly from a range of strategies.
• MATH: Reason with shapes and their attributes.
• SCI: Construct an argument with evidence that in a particular habitat some organisms can survive well, some survive less well, and some cannot survive at all.
• SS: Describe ways in which language, stories, folktales, music, and artistic creations serve as expressions of culture and influence behavior of people living in a particular culture.
• VA: Use different media, techniques, and processes to communicate ideas, experiences, and stories.
• VA: Use visual structures of art to communicate ideas.

Adaptations

• Possible classroom resources include: Comets, Meteors, and Asteroids by Seymour Simon; Destination: Space by Seymour Simon; Asteroid Impact by Douglas Henderson; The Lonely Existence of Asteroids and Comets (Adventures in Science) by Mark Weakland
• Encourage students to create 3-D models, or cross-sections, of their comets using Crayola Model Magic. On the cross-section models, students should include the nucleus, coma, and tail. Prior to the Model Magic drying, students insert a paperclip into the top center of the model and let it air-dry overnight. A ribbon attached to the paperclip will allow the model to be hung from the classroom ceiling.
• Invite students to expand their research to include asteroids and meteors. Compare and contrast these with comets.
• Students may also create 3-D Crayola Model Magic examples of asteroids and meteors to display in the classroom.