Look at our Peacock display! Gorgeous, right? It was all inspired by an adorable book I found at our school book fair called "Three Hens and a Peacock."
The kids loved the story and the silly illustrations. They were even able to apply some things they were learning in their own classroom literacy centers to the story. I was told by an authoritative first grader that the moral was to be happy with what you have, because things aren't always better even if they look that way. I was certainly impressed by them when they came up with that bit of sage wisdom!
I'm fortunate enough to have in-laws that live on a farm and actually have a peacock and a few hens. Petey the Peacock even kindly donated some of his feathers to us so I could pass them around the class and let them feel and observe them up close. They loved hearing stories about Petey too. For instance, it's a male peacock's job to perch somewhere up high and keep an eye out for predators. Petey likes to sit on top of my in-laws' garage while his hens search for food below. If he sees a hawk or fox or coyote, Petey will give an alarm call and all the hens take cover until he sounds an all clear. My first graders were very impressed with how responsible Petey is with keeping his family safe.
We used oil crayons, blending and mixing our blues and greens to make that special "peacock turquoise", added feather textures and created that special "eye" pattern on the tail feathers. It took about two classes of 40 minutes, although some of my slowpokes needed an extra half a class after that.
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| Looks just like him, right? |
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| Petey seems to be camera shy. He fled any time I got close! |
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