Peef the Christmas Bear

This is a project I did with my art class around Christmas time.  We read a book called Peef the Christmas Bear by Tom Haag and Warren Hansen.  It is a really cute story about a special bear that Santa makes from scraps of fabric selected by his elves.  After Santa sews him all up the bear magically comes to life and becomes Santa's special friend and helper.  The story ends with Peef deciding he would like a child to love and longs to be hugged, however he was sad to leave Santa so he never told him.  Santa however knows and finds a special child for Peef.  In order for Peef to leave Santa must turn the magic off and Peef is sent to his special child.

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 So I read this story to the kids and then explained that we were going to make a drawing of Peef.  We used black construction paper and Oil Pastels.  Many of the kids had never used Pastels before so it was fun for them to explore this new material.  Oil Pastels are similar to crayons but their colors are much richer and create thick layers on the paper.  They can also be smudged and manipulated more than crayons.  This image to the right was my example for the kids.  But I told them I wanted them to choose what colors they wanted on their bear.  The Kids in the older class drew their bear on their own and I gave them alot of freedom to explore the materials and create their bear the way they wanted him to look.

 With the littler kids the parents and I assisted them in drawing their bears head and body and then the kids had fun coloring them in and exploring what the pastels would do.