Eric Karle Inspired Story Book

The following picture is an Eric Karle inspired story book we did for our Art Methods Class. Our assignment was to create a two-page storybook layout based on Eric Karle’s artwork. To do this project we had to prepare various colored sheets of paper a week in advance. First, we took a 12X18 sheet of white paper and moistened the surface of the paper with a sponge brush. Then we splattered several colors (ex. white, blue, and yellow) on the paper. Once we had the desired mix of colors on the paper, we took a sponge paintbrush and spread the paint all over the paper. Each student created three of those pages and put them away to dry. Meanwhile we were to think of a storybook scene that we wanted to have on our two-page storybook layout. The next class period we met, our paste paper was dry, so we sketched our characters on the paste paper and cut and glued the characters on to 12X18 piece of construction paper. The scene is about a naughty kitten that always scares a goldfish in its tank. On the next page, the neighbor’s bulldog chased the kitten up the doghouse. After that, the kitten never again teased the goldfish. The words read, “You naughty kitten! See how it feels to be scared.”

An extension activity with this collage would be 4^th grade science when students learn about the animal food chain. Similarly, the students would create a booklet for a grassland biome food chain. On each page, they would have an animal or plant in the correct order of the food chain. Students would label each page, “primary producer, primary consumer,” etc. and explain the role each animal plays in the food chain.