A Sea Full of Fish

One of the big projects I worked on when I did my internship last January was an art project about fish. The students were doing a unit on the rain forest and were really into it. They read about it for language arts and reading, wrote about it in English, and studied ecosystems in science. So when I had to come up with an art project for the school-wide art show, I decided to try to incorporate what they were studying in their other subjects.

The project consisted of drawing their idea of a fish and then tearing different colored tissue paper and painting glue water over their drawings. Then once it dried they cut them out and traced their fish onto another sheet of paper and did it all over again. Once it dried, they cut it out and then stapled the two halves of their fish together. Then we used plastic bags (in order to promote recycling!) to stuff their fish to make them 3-d. Overall, they turned out great! Each fish was so different than the others so the students were not only learning about ecosystems, recycling, and methods of art, they were also getting a fresh lesson in diversity.
I sat up the display in the hallway for the art show and put a little character of each student (using a photo of his or her face I had taken earlier) above where their fish was hanging. I wanted them to be able to make their own character but sadly, there just wasn't enough time! Here's what the results were:

Art display in the hallway.

Catch of the year!

One of the students holding up her fish.