"Z" is for Zebra

These zebras were so much fun to make with my Kindergartners! You sure can hit a BUNCH of benchmarks with these- line, shape, color, pattern, scissor skills, etc.

You will need:

12x18 black paper

8x14 brown paper

block tempera paints

cup white tempera paint

"funky" scissors (or regular scissors will do!!!)

q-tips

glue

This project took us two days, a day for doing the zebra, and a day for mounting and adding the framing patterns. They turned out sooo well, I can't wait to do this again with them!

First, we used ovals to create the zebra. Then we used lines to create the lines. *Note I did not have them make the tail and mane out of crayon at first. I saved that to create with paint*

I first gave them a small cup of white paint. We discussed how the zebra pattern was black/white/black/white so we had to skip some of the lines. After using the white, we rinsed our brushes and whipped out the block tempera paints. I love to use block tempera paints, especially with my little kids. They were only using black and green for this (the white doesn't work that well- it is not very opaque).

On day two we mounted our zebras onto black paper. I have them each a 2"x18" strip of red paper and some "funky" scissors. I had them practice cutting straight across the strip to make tons of little fun strips of paper.

We used glue stick to stick the red pieces on. We had to be sure to leave room in between the red pieces so we could add the white dots!

Lastly, we used q-tips and white paint to create the dots. This gave the project a nice African feel!

I took these pictures before we added the white paint "dots".