Birds

Essential Questions
How do we distinguish one bird from another?
What are signifiers and how do birdwatchers use them?
What can the silhouette of a bird tell us about it?
How do we use what we know about existing birds to invent our own birds?

Enduring Understandings
Students will learn to draw the basic shapes and signifiers of one or more types of birds (song birds, waterfowl and marshland birds, upland ground birds, or perching and tree-clinging birds).
It helps to know the anatomy of existing birds when one tries to invent their own bird.
It helps to set the parameters of the habitat of one’s bird prior to inventing the bird and making a sculpture of it.
Armatures lend support both to living birds and to our sculptures.

Activities
Copy a diagram of a bird skeleton.
Imagine what that bird skeleton would look like with feathers and draw that bird.
Invent your own bird, based on our study of the bird skeleton handout.
View and discuss the documentary film The Making of “Winged Migration.”
Sketch birds while watching the documentary, and make a final composition using one or more birds from your sketches (it’s okay to add even more)
Develop an idea for a bird sculpture—think about shapes, sizes, and color.
Make a bird sculpture out of newspaper, tape, plaster gauze, and tempera paint. We may also be using other materials to decorate the bird sculptures; i.e., construction paper and Trash for Nash items.


Vocabulary
Silhouette—contour, outline or shadow of a form
Signifier – important identifying trait; such as, the shape of a beak or wing
Armature – support material; such as a skeleton