Black Cat

How do you do Halloween projects when your town doesn't let you celebrate Halloween?  Well, you don't - but you can do things that may also be re-purposed to Halloween if the student so desires once they take them home.

This project was based on the book Black Cat by artist Christopher Myers.  The kids loved the illustrations but the story - told in a jazz type scat rhyme- kind of confused them.  The cat is a stray cat who likes being a stray because it means he gets to wander throughout the city.  Some of my kinders couldn't wrap their heads around a stray not wanting a home.

We talked about the texture in the cat's coat before using oil crayons and texture rubbing plates to create our own.  The cat's body was then drawn from simple shapes on the back and cut out.  You should have heard the oohs and aahs when they flipped them over and saw the textures trapped in the shapes of the cat's body.  Scrap papers made the eyes and nose.

On the second day of this project we finished the cat bodies as needed, and then made a background.  We used strips of orange paper to create horizontal and vertical lines (I do not let them get away with calling them straight lines - we use only directional names!) to create a background to emphasize the cat.

This one wound up kitten sized.

I love the eyes pointing in opposite directions.

Overall, not one of my more successful lessons.  I think I'll try it again with an older grade who might enjoy the pictures and story more.  The kinders really struggled with the cutting on this one.  It was a good learning experience for me at least.