Mrs. Lawlor's Class
Terryville Elementary School
Port Jefferson Station, NY
North Country Night

Explanation of Project

We read the book North Country Night and painted a large mural painting showing the environment and the animals featured in this beautiful book by Daniel San Souci. We made a list of all the animals in the book, and discussed at length each animal and its physical characteristics. This helped us to be realistic when we drew and painted the animals. First we sketched in crayon, then we added paint to make our animals look realistic and beautiful. We cut them out and glued them into the scene we all took turns working on. 

We noticed that the author/illustrator did not paint the snow in the scenes all white. We noticed all the shades of blue throughout the book to show the snow, sky, and water. We mixed our paints to get the tints of blue just right to make our painting represent the book. We used the same technique as Mr. San Souci to make the snow and stars : splatter painting with white paint. 

We discussed the animals that are nocturnal in winter as well as those not shown in the book: the animals that spend winter in hibernation. We discussed the food chains and categorized the animals by their eating habits : carnivore, omnivore, herbivore. We found connections between some of the animals and realized they were from the same basic family of animals.

We were so proud of our painting and all the hard work that was devoted which produced such a beautiful result. 


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