Using a method where they first draw with markers, then color their own pictures with crayons, the students in my class created this colorful class book.
After reading Robert Munsch’s wonderful story, The Paper Bag Princess, a few times at the beginning of the week, the students discuss the word, “trick” and why and how the princess in the story tricked the dragon.
The following day, study the pictures in the book and talked about how, Michael Martchenko, the book’s illustrator, drew the dragon and the colors he chose to draw it.
Look at the different actions he had the dragon doing, sometimes flying, sometimes scrunched on the ground and how he changed the dragon’s expressions to show different emotions.
Creating the book
Create a class book called, “How To Trick A Dragon!”. On the last day of discussing the Paper bag Princess, each child thought of a new way to trick a dragon and illustrated their page. Some of the images below would have been quite unrecognizable if completed with felt markers only.
Drawing the pictures with one color of felt marker, then coloring with crayons only, preserved the details of the children’s dragon pictures. As you can see, a few children slipped in a few more marker colors!
The children dictated their stories which I printed out and then glued on their page. The end result was an exciting class book that the students wanted me to read over and over.
The Paper Bag Princess 25th Anniversary Edition: The Story Behind the Story