Project #5 Hidden Safari

For this project, we learned about safaris and animals you can find in safaris. We started out with watching the beginning of the Lion King to see the different animals that we would see in a safari. We also talked about warm colors and cool colors. It was important to know these colors because we used the combination of them to create our drawing. We learned out to draw, even draw upside down!  We were told to follow how the lines and not focus on what we were actually drawing. This was actually easier for me to draw upside down. I decided to draw a zebra. We were supposed to draw our animal in a sky blue colored pencil. After we were finished with our animal, we drew different patterns over top of the animal with warm colors, such as red, orange, and yellow. I used first orange to draw circles across the whole page.  I then used red to draw hearts in between the circles. I then used yellow to draw lines through the middle of the page. The last thing I did was draw little dots of orange in the middle of the circles. I did this to hide the picture so that you can’t see the zebra.

In order for someone to see the zebra now, we made “Ruby Red Glasses” out of construction paper and cellophane paper. When you put these special glasses on, you will see past all the designs, and see the animal.  This happens because the glasses take away the warm colors and show the cool colors, which is the sky blue. The last thing we did was write three clues about our animal, so that people will be able to guess the animal before they look through the glasses to reveal the real animal. This project was a lot of fun because it was interesting to see how you can actually make a real life safari! Students will have no idea what to look for in the picture until they put their special glasses on! It is just a fun activity to get the students in a safari unit.

An extension activity that I would do with this project would be to have the students draw a safari scene in their hidden picture. They can include as many animals as they would like, and then they would be required to add a small paragraph of each animal explaining where you can find them, where they live, and what they eat. Students will have to provide information about the many animals they include in the hidden picture. This way, they will be learning about animals, as well as drawing them in an example safari. They can make the “Ruby Red Glasses” as well and search their friends’ safari to find out what animals they have in their picture. They will also have the opportunity to learn more about their friend’s animals from the paragraphs they write.