Crazy Legs by crazy kids

When I saw this lesson by Phyl at There's a Dragon in my Art Room, I went crazy (har har) for it. How ADORABLE are these little legs made by little kids?

This year's group of first graders really grasped onto the idea of texture, actual versus visual. They identified loads of textures--"my dad's face feels PRICKLY!"--and saw examples of visual texture in famous artworks. One little sweetie even brought in a list of all the textures she found at her house. Precious overachiever.

We used a fancy cutting secret (folded paper, draw once, cut once, very fancy) to make a pair of shoes. We had boots! We had heels! We had athletic cleats! Goodbye art room, hello DSW!

Glued to some old junky paper, our shoes were ready for legs. (I color-coded classes, giving each class their own ugly color, haha.)

Then, our legs were ready for socks! Everyone was told to make a matching pair. Here are some legs in progress:

I put out an all-call for ribbon, rickrack, fabric, et cetera. Thank goodness for the teacher who forwarded the list to her parents, who really came through. Combined with a Rubbermaid bin full of ribbon that I snagged at a yard sale for a whopping $1 (the tub alone is worth more than that!), the leg makers had lots of lovely scraps from which to choose!

YESSSSSSSSS!

I liked this project for so many reasons. The kids loved it--half the battle. It was great for working on gluing skills (huge huge huge), cutting skills, and measuring/estimating by eye. I think it's a keeper!