Skeleton Craftiness!

Let me premise this little project by saying...

A) You should be sure your students have a firm understanding of cursive.
      I discovered several of my kiddos are not... and cursive just looks cooler.

B) Do not attempt on a day that also has a field trip.
      My kiddos were filled with several ounces more of excitement.

C) Allow more time than you may think.

D. Enjoy a pretty cute Halloween-esk craft, with some symmetry and fun!

Start with a piece of white construction paper (to construct the main trunk of the body). I cut mine so that it would be smaller than the black construction paper background. I used the piece cut off for the other assorted body parts that could be added later.

Then, in cursive write your name ALONG the fold.  I suppose, you could do it in print... I thought cursive added a little something. When I bubbled the letters in the next step I added my dot and crossing of the "t". For the letters that hang low...I just had students drawl them up high, as seen in the example above.

 

I quickly bubbled out the letters. Drawing out the same letters only a quarter to a half inch further out worked well. I made sure that the dot to my "i" was connected to the base. 

 

Next part is TRICKY!  You want to cut out the letters, but you also want to leave some of the letters attached to the fold. You can see the a little on the bottom of the "c" and you can tell where I could leave part of the "h" easily connected.

It's easier to see here where things were connected in this picture. Cutting above the letter is easier... I helped several students with the below part (the part connected to the fold). Making the cuttings between letters and in between letters (like inside the "s") really add a lot to the skeleton body. 

Then fold out! I thought my "C's" made for good feet, and the "t's" looked like arms, so I didn't add a whole lot to my end product.

You can see my set up here. All I did was add my head and glue it on my black paper. Faces could be added to the skeleton by cutting them out or drawing them on.



 The following our some of our finished products. For the tag line I said "No Bones About It: 4th Grade is Great!"

A Halloweenish and unique display. The symmetry adds a lot, and the patterns that can be seen in the names is fun!