Hidden Safari

                This product was one of the most entertaining lessons that I experienced the entire semester.  To begin the lesson, the students were asked to come up with different animals that they would see in a safari.  After this, we made our “special glasses” that we would need to see the animals on the safari.  The glasses were made out of construction paper frames with red cellophane lenses.  Then we got to practice drawing by copying small pictures of parts of the animals that we were going to be drawing.  To make students focus more on copying the lines and the movement rather than the big picture, we had to copy the pictures upside down.  After this we began our projects.  We were given pictures of animals to draw and we had to choose one to draw.  In order for this project to work, we had to draw our animals in light blue, a cool color.  After the animal was drawn, we took red yellow and orange and drew patterns over the blue picture.  Finally, at the end of class, we all took turns showing our pictures.  Students had to guess what animal each person drew, and then students were allowed to put their glasses on in order to discover what animal was actually behind the warm colors.

          An extension activity for the hidden safari would be two fold.  First, you could incorporate it into teaching students the concept of patterns.  Students could be required to utilize at least two patterns in their creation in order to assess whether they understand the concept or patterns.  Second, students could create their own study tools using the hidden concept.  A question could be written below the picture, and the answer would be hidden.  Each student would have one question to create.  After the questions were created, they could be utilized as a center in a classroom.