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Lesson Plan Image

Texture Collage

You can feel a texture, but can you see it? Children will create a visual texture collage.

Lesson Plan

Supplies Needed

Gather all the supplies needed to bring your craft ideas to life! From paints and markers to glue and scissors, our crafts section has everything to spark creativity and make every project truly special.

  • Paper
  • Textured Materials

Steps

  • Step 1

    Have children think about different types of textured items and words that could describe them. They might mention LEGO® and describe it as bumpy, or they might suggest a feather and call it soft. Now ask if they can think of a way to make a drawing appear textured.

  • Step 2

    Give each child a piece of thin paper and have an array of textured items for them to choose as rubbing plates. These might include corrugated cardboard, sandpaper, bubble wrap, netting, etc. Crayon rubbings work best if students remove the paper wrapping from the crayons and lay them on their sides to create the textured rubbing patterns. They will place a textured object under a portion of the paper and rub the side of a crayon over that surface until the textured pattern emerges. They can select another object and section of their paper to create another colorful texture pattern.

  • Step 3

    Ask children to plan a collage scene they'd like to create. Encourage them to identify and use various shapes; for example a circle for a head, a rectangle for a tree trunk, etc. Then have them cut or tear the shapes and arrange and glue them onto another piece of blank paper.

  • Step 4

    Have children present their art and describe the shapes and their story scenes to their classmates.

Standards

ARTS: Explore and invent art-making techniques and approaches.

MATH: Describe, compare, quantify, and classify objects by attributes. Sort objects into categories.

Adaptations

Have students create a texture collage by gluing physical items to paper to complement the crayon patterns they have left over from the original lesson. For example, they could add yarn to the scene as a character's hair or ripples in a stream. They could add felt scraps to a character as clothing. Or they could cut a strip of bubble wrap and glue it to the scene as a cobblestone path.

Eric Carle is an author/illustrator known for his collage illustrations. Read one of his books, such as "The Very Hungry Caterpillar," to the class. Have them point out the textures they can see, such as a fuzzy caterpillar, a bumpy strawberry, a smooth apple, etc.