Totally Tubular Turkeys

Last week Tuesday was the day before Thanksgiving break.  Some teachers dread these days, others look forward to them.  Me?  I'm undecided.  :)

I made the decision to go off my lesson plan for the day.  I thought we all could use the break.   Tuesday morning I arrived to school with the vague idea that I would do some Thanksgiving related project- but not really having any concrete plan.  

5 minutes of scavenging resulted in the idea of creating these TP tube turkeys.  I didn't have a pattern to follow, I didn't have any paper pre-cut other than brown paper for the heads and I didn't spend a ton of time giving directions.  I truly wanted the kids to have fun, dig in my scrap bucket and create an adorable turkey of their own.

Here's some of our results:

Here were my directions on the board- pretty basic.  

There may be some people out there who think that I blew off my lesson just to have fun, or that the students weren't learning concepts while doing this 'craft' lesson.  But the truth is the students learned many skills; like how to create a 3-D additive sculpture, how to create something from recycled materials,  how to communicate an idea, and to create shapes and textures found in nature.  To extend the learning I also had students draw their sculpture in their sketchbooks- something that is a learning target concept for 2nd grade and up.  All in all it was a very successful, FUN, and great learning lesson!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!