Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs

From this popular children's book, I was able to encourage a playful art atmosphere that resulted in a project with a lot of success.
Resources to Consider
Book by Judi Barrett Drawn by Ron Barrett
Inspiration source: Art Projects for Kids
Intended Grade Level(s): 1st-4th grade
Estimated Class Period(s): One (could be stretched to 2)
Materials Required: White 9X12 tagboard or paper, rulers, sharpies, colored pencils (or crayons)
Procedure (Guided Lesson, Instructions, etc):
Read the book, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, demonstrate how to draw grid, give examples and provide students with teacher support throughout the lesson.
Project (Steps, Examples, etc):
1. After reading the book Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, explain that students are to draw a grid on their paper using a ruler and a sharpie marker. In this case, I will ask students to first draw a border in pencil near the outside edge. If they mark the top line into thirds, they need to draw a vertical line down on their the left on the right mark.
2. Next they will look at the larger rectangle they made, and draw one horizontal line to divide it into thirds. The same is done for the narrower side, with a horizontal line drawn across it somewhere to mark off a third. What is left should be a grid with a large space, two medium, and one smaller square. More or less. It is, after all, still elementary school!


3. I show them in the book how some of the pages are divided into a variety of rectangles and artists will often attempt to tell a story this way.
4. Today students are to pretend that our town is the town of Chewandswallow. A food storm has just rolled into town. Have them save the first food that comes to their mind, don’t let them yell it out. Explain that they are going to draw that food really big in the largest box on their paper.
5. In the box above that, they are to draw a building or landmark from our town getting pulverized by the food. In the 3 boxes on the edge of the paper, they are to tell the story of what happened when the food storm hit. They should consider, is this a disaster? Is it totally awesome? The boxes should reflect their opinion of the situation.
6. Ideas for the boxes: Cover of local paper with the story on the front page, picture of themselves either holding a spoon or an umbrella, close up of another food or landmark or something related to the event. I showed an example of our local paper, pictures of a famous sculpture in our town and a local restaurant.
7. After drawing in sharpie and adding appropriate details and perhaps a background pattern in the big box, students should color with colored pencils.

Assessment and Reflection: . Students should be able to complete the drawing and painting with little or no teacher assistance and the finished product should have good craftsman ship and details appropriate to the grade level.


Sample Photos