My second graders looked at some artwork by Alex Beard, who is on display in my room along with M.C. Escher, as many of his paintings are sort of tessellations. We read his book Monkey See, Monkey Draw. We did an activity often done by Alex Beard when he works with kids, which is a simple lesson relating to the story. The children traced their hand, and then had to turn it into "something". The only rule: NO TURKEYS. Michael made this adorable deer. Thomas is still working to finish coloring his awesome dragon. Peyton made this great tiger -hmmm it seems to have 5 legs. At least I hope they are all legs... Some kids made dinosaurs, flowers, trees, and more, but MANY of them, perhaps inspired by Alex Beard's peacock image hanging on my bulletin board, decided to make peacocks. As a result, I decided we needed to paint some peacocks. We watched a great video of a peacock showing off his feathers, and examined some real peacock feathers close up. We have now begun drawing peacocks for a shimmery painting, with sparkly crayons for resist.