Rooster's Off to See the World and Watercolors

We just started our new unit with the big question, "Where will our adventures take us?" Our first story in this unit was Eric Carle's "Rooster's Off to See the World." Watch a reading here on youtube.

We discussed Rooster's adventures as well as what kind of adventures we could take, both fictional and nonfictional. Students came up with potential adventures to many places including the Arctic and Banana Land. 

Being an art school, we also studied Eric Carle's techniques as an illustrator. We learned he uses a style of collage with hand-painted tissue papers. Click here to see Eric Carle's illustrating technique from the official Eric Carle site.

We observed, analyzed, compared, and contrasted illustrations from this story as well as some of his other stories we have read that he illustrated (The Tiny Seed, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Brown Bear, Brown Bear, etc.) We decided to create our own images from the story using water colors on
paper.

I can't wait to teach the next Eric Carle lesson and allow the students to use the tissue paper collage technique. I will update on their creativity soon!

**Update** Traveling Gingerbread Friend

My students started the year out with a Traveling Gingerbread Friend global connection project where they learned about other places in the United States. See the original blog post here. The project was to allow the students to get to know other places and new geography in the state of Alabama and the United States. Each student designed his/her own gingerbread friend and sent him/her out to a friend or family member in another city or state. When they finally started returning, via email and post office mail, the students couldn't have been more excited! Every day they would ask, "Do we have another gingerbread friend today?" They have been thrilled to see their ginger friends and learn about their travels--some even brought back souvenirs! Our gingerbread friends have traveled the country from the west coast to the east coast and down to the gulf coast. We have learned about new people, places, and landmarks. Here are some pictures of their adventures on our bulletin board display.

West Coast

East and Gulf Coast

Love this project? Check it out on my TPT Traveling Gingerbread Friend on KinderGardening TPT.