Grade Level: Third grade did Food Chains, Fourth and Fifth did Food Webs
Art Integration: Science (Life Science, Food Webs) GLEC: L.EC.E.1 Interactions- Organisms interact in various ways including providing food and shelter to one another. Some interactions are helpful; others are harmful to the organism and other organisms. Fourth: L.EC.04.11 Identify organisms as part of a food chain or food web. Third: Animal Adaptations/Camouflage: L.EV.E.1 Environmental Adaptation- Different kinds of organisms have characteristics that help them to live in different environments.
Art Concept: Collage, Composition, Focal Point, artist Eric Carle, warm and cool colors
Materials: White construction paper, watercolor/tempera cake paints, crayons, pencil, tissue paper, glue, water and paintbrushes, scissors
Grade 3: Week One: Watch Magic Schoolbus Takes a Dive. Discuss food chains, predator, prey relationships, symbiotic (benefits both) partnerships, ocean creatures, male care of young. Review warm vs. cool colors for the art portion. Compare and contrast the difference between the two. Discuss what a food chain is, what creatures are predators and which are pray, and which creatures are at the top of the food chain. Have them decide what creature will be the focal point of their food chain?
Art Portion: Start the crayon resist ocean painting and include 5 to 6 sea creatures that are in the ocean food chain (show them how to leave a space for their main animal to be added later). Demo how to paint the cool colors of the ocean water.
Week two: Read Eric Carle’s Mr. Seahorse. What was happening in the story/what was the author’s message? Discuss how all the male creatures in the story took care of their young. Discuss camouflage and how it was used in the story to protect various sea creatures. Students then decide on their main creature that will be the focal point, a seahorse or sea creature. Discuss warm and cool colors. Demonstrate how the warm colors of the turtle or seahorse can really stand out in contrast to the cool colors of the ocean. Alternatively, their sea creature can use cool colors thus using camouflage to better hide in their habitat.
Art portion: Students create the paper for their seahorse. Have them cut up small pieces of either cool or warm colors of tissue paper. Show how they then paint a small area of watered down Elmer's glue, and then lay small pieces of tissue paper touching or overlapping other pieces, then paint over the top with the thin glue mixture.
Week Three: Finish the background if need be. Draw their main creature (manta ray, seahorse, fish) on the back of their dry tissue papers and carefully cut it out. Glue it onto the finished ocean background. Swap papers to add other creatures. Add sequins or real tiny seashells and other details.
Grades 4-5 Week One: Watch Bill Nye’s Ocean Food Web. Review producer, consumer, predator, prey, food chains vs. food webs. Compare how they differ? Play an ocean animal card game where they lay out cards showing various ocean animals on the table into a food web. Each table team sorts 8 different sets of ocean food webs (one on each table) switching every 2 minutes.
Week Two: Draw and paint a crayon resist ocean with sea creatures from their food web. Some fourth grade teachers worked with their students to determine the actual food web and completed additional food web info in their classroom.
Week Two: Start tissue paper Eric Carle-type papers. Week three: Finish cutting out sea creatures and glue them on to finished ocean food web painting. Also discuss warm vs. cool colors, focal point. Note: All grades continued the Eric Carle connection started in previous years when we did an entire unit on Eric Carle.