Birds of a Feather

“Birds of a Feather” is a project that Monica and I created and taught. It is a lesson about the beauty of diversity. The pictures shown are of our board that displayed the pictures of the students’ projects and my project example.

 In the lesson, the students were asked to create a character and convey this character using different textures and patterns. First, they created their character by writing out characteristics on a note card. Next, they cut out shapes of the bird template that we provided them with. Then, they drew their patterns and applied texture (feathers and/or tissue paper) to the shapes. After this, they assembled all the shapes by folding, cutting, and gluing to create a bird form. Finally, they punched 3 holes, 2 in the wing and 1 in the middle of the body, strung 1 pieces of 18” yarn through each hole, and tied these three pieces together at the top.

An extension project that a teacher could teach following “Birds of a Feather” could be to instruct students to create their own flying animal. In “Birds of a Feather”, we provided the students with a template. In this project, there would be no template. If students are confused about construction, they can refer back to the bird template. Again, they would have to create a character. However, this time they can choose the medium and techniques that they want to use to portray the character. “Birds of a Feather” was mostly about technique. Now that the students know these techniques, this project will do more to encourage creativity and originality.