3rd Grade: Foreshortened Scuba Divers

Here are some of our completed foreshortened scuba divers from the end of the 3rd grade water unit!  For this project, we continued to incorporate texture and the ocean habitats we learned about with the submarine project.  This group did pretty well...I have a few students who really stand out in their drawing abilities and craftsmanship (they have stood out since 1st grade when I started teaching them!), but one thing is for sure: I feel I really need to work more on having a good background with good details with this group!

The steps for this are pretty simple if you've never done this project before.
1. Have the kids trace their hands and feet on the paper first with a partner.
2. Draw a body (ideally, the arms and legs should be thicker where they connect to the hands and feet, and get thinner as they connect to the body...)
3. Put in your details! (We reviewed the ocean habitat information and looked at what scuba gear looks like for deep sea diving vs. shallow diving.)

The first year I started teaching, I did this project with 3rd grade and I just called it "Falling for Foreshortening" (we talked more about observing texture from our clothes and shoes for that particular project).  Students drew themselves like they were falling through a hole.  This year I was planning to do an astronaut foreshortening project with this group, but the opportunity to do it with the water unit came up.  I think the 3rd graders do a space unit later in the year anyways, so I will probably incorporate foreshortening again to do the astronaut project with some cool oil pastel/shaving cream marbled planets!