CRAZY SCARECROWS

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Home : 2003 : October : 12

CRAZY SCARECROWS
By HEIDI

Two ideas: one easy, one more interesting but a bit more of a challenge. I'm sure the kids will love the more difficult project.

Bring in paper lunch bags, scraps of fabric, some raffia, perhaps even some cord. Set students
up in groups. Give each student a bag and give the group a selection of the fabrics (many parents would send in fabric scraps or even old clothing that could be cut up). Also give each team some glue, construction paper, and each student needs pastels to get really vibrant colour. Their mission: To design a scarecrow head as a mixed-media ssculpture. They could stuff the head

with crunched up newspaper if they want and really make it 3-D, or leave it flat. Discuss the importance of these funny-looking creatures as something people sometimes build to place in a corn field so the crows will think there's a person there and the birds will be scared away. Kids will likely bring up the Wizard of Oz. Tell them that at Hallowe'en people sometimes make their property spooky by setting up scarecrows too. Let them go wild inventing scarecrows with individual personalities!

Alternatively, give each student art paper and pastels, and guide them in filling the page with a scarecrow's head, just like a super close-up picture. I suggest doing a sample on a page taped to your board to show them step by step, starting with drawing the bag, but not as a perfect rectangle because the bottom would be gathered up and tied off. Start them with yellow or peach pastel so they can fix up mistakes before they begin colouring. Encourage them to really fill the page, adding a hat, some straw at the neck, perhaps some shoulders... then colour it in!