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This lesson was very interesting to reflect on. I did the same activity with both my fourth graders AND my kindergartners! My goal for my kindergartners was simply for them to realize that our human bodies are put together in a particular way- we have heads, torsos, and limbs. Young children often draw bodies in ways that don't make sense. Sometimes they draw big heads with tiny bodies underneath, or they draw normal-sized heads and torsos, yet scrunch the legs up to be very short. Or sometimes they even draw the arms and legs coming out of the head, skipping the torso altogether- like a Mr. Potato Head. These are all normal developmental stages that children naturally progress past. Through our practice in studying and drawing these manikins, I just wanted them to THINK about what they were drawing. I repeated the same drawing activity with fourth graders. My objective for this lesson was a bit more specific. This grade level is beginning a new IB unit centered around the concept of "Structure"- how things are put together. They'll be investigating this concept in a variety of different subject areas. Through observing and drawing these manikins, I wanted students to think about the "structure" of the human figure- how our bodies are put together. They've studied the skeletal structure of our bodies in Dance, and learned how our muscles are connected to the bones, and that moving them together is what allows us to hold ourselves up yet still flex and bend. This drawing activity is an extension of that prior learning. Much like the kindergarten students, I wanted fourth graders to draw with accuracy in representing the head, torso, and arms and legs. As these students are quite a bit older, their drawings are much more realistic and have better form. I started each fourth grade class session by showing students examples of the kindergarten drawings- I challenged them by pointing out how much detail the younger students could capture, and said that if a five-year-old can draw like this, show us what someone twice that age could do! Here are my fourth graders at work:
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