An oldie but goodie - 'Words that Describe Themselves'

I've shared this in a lesson plan exchange (of lessons for substitutes) that Art Project Girl arranged a year or two ago, but I've never posted it on the blog before.  The flag image above had me thinking about our presidential inauguration, so I thought I'd share this lesson today. (By the way, did you LOVE Michelle Obama's red dress as much as I did?  Spectacular color!)  

Back to the lesson; the idea is simple.  How can you illustrate a word so that the word itself illustrates what it says (but is still easy to read)?  We brainstormed word ideas on the whiteboard, and then selected words.  No two people in the same class were allowed to select the same word.  Great words include nice descriptive adjectives (curly, frozen, boiling, tangled, etc) and almost any sort of noun, including objects or broader themes (sports, art, ice cream, mountains, rope, autumn, feathers, wild animals, cupcakes, magic, waterfall, ocean, snowstorm, rocket, hair, etc). Try to discourage the real easy words: hot, cold, short, tall.  

 Plan ideas on scrap paper, and then select the materials that work best for the chosen word.  Make sure it is spelled correctly!  We usually talked a bit about lettering (use of upper vs lower case, etc) and spacing (there is nothing worse than running out of room and having to squash together the last few letters).  On the final paper, the word is drawn out very lightly to make sure the space is being used effectively, and then color is added as appropriate.  Some of the examples in these pictures were colored with markers, others with colored pencils or crayons.  They were then cut out and mounted on construction paper, so from start to finish, the lesson took two art class periods.  Time permitting, the lesson can be expanded.  Wouldn't it be great for that FLAG to be waving against a sky?  And what if the EGGS (below) were placed in a frying pan or on a plate? 

Sorry the rest of these are sideways.  They are the only pics I have of this project so they'll have to do :(

The pieces pictured in this post were all done, I believe, by 5th graders, but this lesson can be easily adapted for both younger and older students.