To use drawing, painting, sculpture and imagination!

Resources needed:

  • Popular children’s fiction books
  • Masking tape
  • Newspaper
  • Cardboard
  • Coloured paper
  • Junk modelling materials
  • Papier-mâché
  • Wire
  • String

 

 

 

  1. Look at some fantasy creatures from children’s fiction, such as ‘Where the Wild Things Are’, ‘The Grinch’ or ‘Aliens Love Underpants’. Point out the creatures and ask the children to tell you some of the features, such as colourful fur or feathers, sharp claws, funny eyes etc.
  2. Ask the children to produce some sketches of a fantasy creature of their own. Encourage as much detail as possible.
  3. Gather everyone together and share some ideas. This is a good speaking and listening activity and it may also be useful to stimulate ideas in children who find this kind of open-ended creative activity quite challenging.
  4. Give the children some more time to produce their sketches – explain that they will be making the creature so they should be thinking about what kind of materials they’d like to use.
  5. Once the children have finalised an idea, ask them to produce a painting of their creature which should also be labelled to show the features, as well as the materials they might want to use to sculpt it.
  6. Using a variety of media, ask the children to make their creature. They should consider some practical elements as they work: how will it stand up? How big will it be? What sort of body/legs/head/arms/wings will it have? What sort of materials will it be covered in? What small details will be included (such as eyes, ears, claws etc.)
  7. Papier-mâché is a good medium for this kind of sculpture work – use balloons, bowls or even scrunched up paper as a form to papier-mâché over.
  8. This task may of course take several sessions to complete. Encourage the children to bring extra materials from home to make their creature as wild and unusual as they like. tinsel, glitter, egg boxes, lids, foil and other materials can all be added to make their creature fantastical!
  9. Children should, of course, name their creature. It can be anything they like so encourage creative responses!

 

Further Activities:

Organise an exhibition of the creatures once they are complete. Invite parents or other classes to come and see the wonderful beasts.

Stimulate writing with this activity by asking the children to write some facts about their creature – where can it be found? What does it like to eat? Does it do anything unusual? What noises does it make? What must you be careful of?

Curriculum Areas covered:

KS1 art: KS1 art: to use drawing, painting and sculpture to develop and share their ideas, experiences and imagination