Alfie's Long Winter

Alfie’s Long Winter is written by Greg McElvoy. It’s a fantastic book about a leaf named Alfie who is too scared to jump off the tree when autumn comes. It’s a wonderful book to make connections on children’s fears and ways they have conquered their fears. 

I borrowed the art idea from That Artists Woman blog. I adapted it for the classroom. After reading the book, we  created our own tree with Alfie on it.  I began with teaching a lesson on drawing trees. We practiced on GOOS ( good on one side) paper.  Then I asked the students to create a background. I used a 3×5″ size cardstock paper. They have to choose a warm or cool background. They are free to anything in their background but they must use only warm or cool colours. They can use pencil crayons, markers or crayons. Some students made patterns, while others created abstract backgrounds. Once the background was completed, students had access to  thick, medium and thin black markers to draw Alfie’s tree.  Its simple and quick.   I pasted the artwork on black construction paper and hung it up. The  lesson took about 1 hour.
  

Materials:

3×5″ Cardstock

Black Construction Paper Thick, 

Medium and thin black permanent markers

pencil crayons, crayons and markers