Stylized Food Chains with 5th Grade

Final product wise, this might just have been my FAVORITE project this past school year. I am so unbelievably proud of the work these 5th graders did on these! I found this project here via Pinterest. Thanks a faithful attempt!

I Can Statements:

I Can talk about stylized art

I Can use the Library resource A-Z Animals Encyclopedia to research a food chain that includes 3 or more animals

I Can show a food chain mouth-in-mouth using stylized images of plants and animals

Day 1: Students came in with this image on the screen...

I asked them to figure out what they all had in common, eventually they ended up describing stylized without even knowing it (I love when that happens!) and I revealed the vocabulary of stylized. To better explain I showed them this awesome graphic I put together in lucidpress....

After a bit more discussion we had a "quiz" where I put up an image and they had to guess stylized or realistic. They did perfect. Then I showed them our inspiration image...

They just wrapped up a science unit about ecosystems and food chains so it was the perfect project to connect to the classroom. After explaining the I Cans and the how to do the research and navigate the site they were using for research, they grabbed laptops and got to work filling out the packet below. There was quite a bit of sketching involved but it really seemed to help them understand how to break down their animals and plants.

Day 2: After I approved their sketches they got to work! They had an option to draw and color with colored pencil or to collage with paper.

We took about 4 class periods total on this, 1 for intro and research, and the rest were workdays. Next time I will probably have them writing something to go along with them when they are displayed.

 I just can't contain how happy these make me!