Insect Silhouettes

We made Imaginary Insect Silhouettes, and I have to thank Holly at Decor8 for posting the image (the black bugs on white background artwork that's halfway down the page) that gave me the lesson inspiration.

We also decided to give each bug a crazy name by randomly choosing 3 words from the dictionary then making up a new word using parts of each word.  Ex. refrigerator, soil, perspiration = "Persoilerator"
After giving the insects names, we also wrote where they could be found, both geographical location and physical habitat, and what it eats.  Ex. "Persoilerator.  Found in Asia, lives in fresh water, eats salamander eggs."

The steps for making the bugs is easy and we reviewed art words: positive and negative space, and symmetry.
Steps:
1.  Fold black paper, draw half the bug on the fold with chalk or white crayon.
2. Open the paper and visualize the whole bug.  Make corrections if you want to, ex. bigger head, legs, etc.
3.  Cut and glue onto white background.

4.  If I do it again, I would have students write bug name and description on separate piece of paper because I thought their writing took away from the design of the insects.

Well - this pic isn't upside down, until I post it?  Re-tried, and it's still upside down....you can still get the gist that this student made a bug family:)

And this one wants to stay sideways in the post, oh well!

Thanks Flamson Middle School 7th and 8th grade GATE students!