Imaginary and Magical Creatures - St. Patrick's Day Art Plan
The month of March is a fun opportunity to teach lessons about imaginary and magical creatures. Subs will love you for leaving them a lesson like this that will keep the kids engaged.
When you can be picky about who subs for you, I would request one that could use a DVD player or computer if I wanted to show a video. If you know you couldn't get that picky, find a picture book with leprechauns or about St. Patrick's Day.
When I teach this lesson or leave it for a sub, I love to show one of the old Reading Rainbow videos about St. Patrick's Day to go with it. You might be lucky enough to have it; find it to buy, or find it on YouTube. There are other resources you can use too, though. As of today, here's a YouTube video for the reading of "How to Catch a Leprechaun" on the Happy Cultivated channel. If you have access to the book itself, it is a good one to go with this lesson. (If you go with a video, always preview it first.)
Supplies Needed
-black pens, if they know how to use them properly OR pencils
-crayons
-paper
-a book or video about leprechauns or magical creatures
Dear Sub, Thank you so much for coming in today. You will be teaching kindergarten through fifth grade and my classes are all 55 minutes long.
I expect the children to work with a minimum of noise. Whispering might be okay but loud play isn't okay. Use your own judgment on what you will accept. If the whole class does not respect the noise level, you can have them put their heads down for a couple of minutes. This usually takes care of the problem when it does happen.
The lessons for today show the theme of St. Patrick's Day. Ask the students if they know anything about the holiday. Show them the DVD about St. Patrick's Day. It is already in the DVD player under the projector. (Press the red button on the projector once. Press the play button on the DVD player. To turn off the projector, press the red button slowly two times.)
Ask them to tell you about the magical creatures they saw in the video. What did they look like? What did they do? Have them talk about their magic. What was at the end of the rainbow?
Since magical creatures are imaginary, we could invent our own lucky creatures. It could be an animal. It could look like a person. It could have wings. It could be a magic genie. What color would it be? What magic could they do? Would they have treasure? Where would their treasure be? Would they be like a dragon? Would they be a magic horse or some other animal?
Think up a lucky creature that you would like to find. Draw your magical lucky creatures and show what magic they could do. You might have a lot of lucky creatures that live together.
Send three at a time to the taller tables and two to the shorter ones. Pick one student from each table to get supplies. They should get the following:
black pens
crayons (in the blue boxes)
paper (they should line up in front of you and tell you how many sheets they need for their table)
They should begin by writing their name and class codes on their papers. They will draw and color what they would like to happen on their lucky day. Remind them to work hard and use their imaginations.
As students start to finish, you can start playing the videos on the disk related to St. Patrick's Day. Students who are finished can watch the videos. Ones who want to continue to work on their artwork may do that as well.
They may watch that until the end of class or you can have the children bring their artwork to you....and you show the art, one at a time, to the class. Students should clap for each other when you show each picture. (Remind them to clap for everyone!)
At the time for the end of class, line the children up to wait for their teacher.
If you would like to leave a worksheet activity that your sub could use with this lesson, check out this activity in my TPT shop: Create a Leprechaun in Disguise It is great for early finishers.
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