lesson plan

GRADES 3-5

easy chalk iguanas

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Here's what you'll need:

12" x 18” black drawing paper

Black oil pastel or soft crayon (like Faber-

Castell brand)

Colored chalk pastel

Reptiles always makes a wonderful

subject for an art project. Lizards,

chameleons and Iguanas seem to

appeal to just about every kid.

The best part about this project is that

the iguana is very easy to draw. There

are other projects that I do that

require a more detailed drawing but

for chalk, the simpler the drawing, the

easier it will be to elaborate with the

chalk.

You can try to do this lesson on a

smaller piece of paper but the larger

size helps children be creative and

expressive with the chalk—which is the

goal.

chalk

Iguanas

V I D E O L I N K

To view the video lesson in the Teaching Art 101 class, please click this link:

EASY CHALK IGUANA VIDEO

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instructions:

Place newspapers on tables. Place a tub of black oil pastels and a few trays of colored chalk pastels on each table.

Using the handout as a drawing guide, direct the children in a line drawing. When drawing on the board, make a few mistakes and then show the children possible ways to fix them. As a rule, have the children draw along with you, even if they make mistakes, and then at the end of the drawing, they can either keep the drawing or flip to the other side of the paper.

I like to show a variety of ways the children can draw their iguana, so it’s helpful to place as many photographs as you can on the board. Children can follow directed line drawing, but they can also decide to draw a bit differently.

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instructions:Using colored chalk, color in the iguana/lizard first and then the background. Encourage fun colors

so that the children don’t feel restricted by color choice. Demonstrate a few ways to blend two

pastel colors together to achieve color variation.

Outline with black oil pastel after all areas of the black paper is colored with chalk pastel. Use the

black oil pastel to outline all the good lines. This means that if a child made some mistakes, don’t

trace over them again. The oil pastel is useful for highlighting spots, eyes, wrinkles, claws,patterns,

etc.

Chalk can be very messy, but just embrace it. If you put newspapers under the student’s artwork,

you can then use the very same newspaper to use a paper protector for the artwork. Simply shake

the access chalk onto the floor (sorry…this is what I do!) or into a waste bin, then fold the

newspaper over the artwork to stack for the next art class.

About Spraying… I don’t spray my chalk pieces as I have too

many. If a chalk piece is selected to be

displayed in an art show, I do spray the artwork

with a chalk pastel fixative. I have used Final

Net aerosol hairspray in the past and find it

works exactly like the expensive fixative. Both

make tiny droplets onto the artwork, which I

don’t like, but it does prevent smudging.

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chalk iguanas 5th grade

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