•|RL Arts: Santa Clara Audubon Society Poster Contest

The Santa Clara Audubon Society has a poster contest for their Education Day every year. I was given the flyer for this project and immediately knew I wanted my students to participate, because it will not only be educational, and raise awareness about threatened species in our County, but it will be FUN! It is a great opportunity for the classes to bond with each other and appreciate facets of nature that could use our help!

At first I wanted to do a lesson tie-in, and teach the students about Value. Initially, this is what my direction was. It could be also an Artist Study of James Audubon's illustrations, too.

We first learned how to make brown, from the complimentary pair: blue and orange. I also explained you can mix all complimentary pairs to make a neutral (brown) color. I showed them how when mixing, try not to see any blue or any orange in your final color. We added this brown to out Value Ladders in the center square. We then made tints and shades of brown from here, and documented them on the scale.

I started them off with a simple, basic, open for personal touch, contour drawing of the Owl's Habitat (the burrow) and the shape of the Owl itself. We discussed how the light changes in the handout I gave them. We painted the spaces with different values of our awesome brown.

Week 2, I showed an educational clip, "Reversing the Trend", on the Burrowing Owl population here in our County, and its threatened habitat made by the SCVAS.

After some discussion on why it is important to keep their species alive, and how this would affect the ecology and balance of other animals in that habitat, we added final details to the owl, and the slogan. I gave them choices for the slogan. Originally, I thought of "Give a Hoot". But after consideration, I thought for this age group, there would be questions as to what that means!! (eek!). So I thought up of:
"Hoo'll Save Us?"
"Hoo'll Protect Us?"
"Find Your Own Burrow!"
I could choose 6 posters from each other the 2 classes I taught the lesson to. Below are the nominees for each class, along with the rest of the class's work. IT WAS SO SO HARD TO CHOOSE!! They are all winners!

Monta Loma Elementary School
Mountain View, California
Participating Classes:
Mrs. Fetroe - 3rd Grade
Mrs. Burris - 3rd Grade
The 12 posters I nominated for the contest are posted below.
(6 posters allowed per class)
Scroll down for Mrs. Burris' class posters!

Mrs. Fetroe's Class Nominees: