Pattern Fish

I always love to begin the school year with the book Pattern Fish, by Trudy Harris.  My first grade students love to show just how much they know about patterns.  It's a great cross-curricular book. After we read the book and discuss patterns, students participated in a directed drawing.  I try not to use stencils unless I need things to be a certain size.  It can be challenging to get the little ones to draw large enough to fill the paper.  But we all gave it a go!

So the process went a little something like this. We began with a great big frown.  That was the key to getting them to draw large.  Then we added a smile.  Voila!  A fish body. Next we added details, such as fins, a tail and a mouth. Students then had to decide on a pattern for their fish body. After adding all of our details to our fish, we added seaweed. This is a great way to explain overlapping to the little ones. The ocean bottom was added, along with some bottom dwellers and then it was time to trace over our lines with Sharpies. 

The next time we met, students added color, remembering to use a pattern with their choice of color.  White crayons were used to add bubbles.  To wrap it up, each student painted their water using a glittery watercolor. There were lots of oohs and ahhs when they realized their water sparkled. Everyone had such success with this project!