Last week I spent a very enjoyable hour with Jennifer Best’s kindergarten class at Haynes Elementary School in Los Angeles, California--reading my book A Zebra’s World, going on a “Lion Hunt” and working with the children as they made their own zebra art. For the art project each child received a cut out shape of a zebra–but without any stripes. We looked at a picture of a zebra to notice which way a zebra’s stripes go, and then the children glued black strips of paper onto their zebra shapes to give them their stripes. Black dots made with a paper punch were glued on for eyes.
Then they chose green and blue paper (for grass and sky) for the background and cut out suns, clouds, butterflies, trees and other objects of their choice to include in their pictures. I was impressed with the variety of ways they chose to create their art and how each child’s picture was unique. Before I became a children’s book writer I was an art teacher, and projects like this remind me of the joys of doing art with children. I thank Jennifer Best and the children in her class for sharing their time with me!
The template for the Put the Stripes on the Zebra project can be downloaded from my website on the zebra book page.
