Pop-Up Books

In today's class, we were introduced to 3-d design. We learned about foreground, middle ground, and background, as well as space and depth. We talked about Owen Gatley, an illustrator who created an adventure/travel themed pop-up book featuring different landscapes and animals. We also discussed sculptors. We asked the class where their ideal vacation would be, brainstorming the different kinds of vacations one could take. We then did a class vacation sketch to Alaska. We then introduced the project. Students would take cardstock, fold it in half, and make their own mini pop-up scene featuring their ideal vacation, utilizing different 3-d forms and pop-up methods, as well as textures. My pop-up scene featured a sailboat in a river, as well as rolling hills, bushes, a palm tree, and a sunny clear sky. My theme was "Hawaii". Upon completion of this assignment, we had to write a short 4th grade level paragraph detailing where we went and what we did while we were there, as well as how we got there.

I think a good expansion activity for this project would be to allow students to pick a vacation or travel themed book to illustrate for this assignment. Students would read the book, and then create their pop-up scene with a specific scene from their book in mind. This would expand their language arts and reading skills, and working on a larger format would allow them to incorporate more information into their project.