Audubon-Inspired Turkeys

Wild Turkeys I photographed while visiting the Konza Prairie.

I showed my 1st grade students a PowerPoint on James Audubon and we spent some time talking about his bird paintings (you can see every individual feather!)  We really focused on his Wild Turkey painting.  I love to talk about turkey facts with my students, a benefit of growing up in a hunting family!  The students know about the waddle but I like to point out the beard and spurs, too.  In my classes that had 2 sessions to make the project, I printed off and laminated photos of wild turkeys and put one copy of each photo at each table.  The students spent one class period drawing their turkeys realistically with the photos as reference.  We talked about pretending they were ornithologist-artists like Audubon.  The second session was spent adding color with colored pencil.  In my classes that only had 1 session, we did a follow the leader drawing so I could model looking at the lines and shapes, planning the composition, and adding details.

Thanksgiving Shoe Turkeys- Kindergarten

This was a great one-day project for Kindergarten. We have 40 minute class periods and about the first 10 minutes were spent talking about turkeys. I asked the students why we would be talking about turkeys in November and for them to tell me everything they knew about the birds. I made my dad and my brother proud by telling them things about turkeys I know from growing up in a hunting family. (My brother likes to tease and asked me if they were awake when I was done talking!) They already knew about the special tail feathers but I told them that turkeys "strut" and spread out their fans, have spurs for fighting, and even have beards. The students thought the idea of turkeys having beards was pretty funny. The students already knew about the waddle. After we discussed turkey anatomy, behavior, and names (Tom, Jake, hens), I showed the students how we would use our shoes to make the basic body shape. I took my shoe off and traced it on the whiteboard to talk them through it then the students either took their shoe off to trace or stepped on the paper while I traced for them.

You can see more Shoe Turkeys in our Artsonia gallery.