Week 9- Beginning our Animal Sculptures

This week, the kids chose an animal they'd like to sculpt out of paper mâché. To start, we drew our animal to get familiar with it's shape and body parts.





We also talked about gathering supplies for the armature of the animal by asking ourselves questions like these: What sort of shape is the body? Would a 2 liter bottle serve as a good base for it, or something else? Is it flat like a turtle? Perhaps a plastic lid would work. Some kids are collecting things like paper towel tubes for legs. Cardboard works well for ears and wings. Wire can be used for thin parts like antlers. And of course, everyone will need newspaper.



Here's an example of a 1st grader's animal project, an okapi, done with paper mâché. The body is a two liter bottle, the legs are paper towel tubes, the head is a small Gatorade bottle, and the ears are cardboard.



Hopefully this gives you an idea of what we are about to undertake. It should be lots of fun!