April 8 is Draw a Picture of a Bird Day. That means exactly what it says, so grab some paper and crayons or a sidewalk and chalk, and try it out! When you draw anything, you’re making lots of decisions without even realizing it: what thing to draw, what colors to use, and how big to make each piece of the picture. If you want a purple bird with a beak bigger than its head, today is your big chance.
Wee ones: This bird drawing uses circles. Take a pencil, pen, crayon or marker, and draw 3 circles of different sizes. Point to the smallest one!
Little kids: Groups of birds aren’t always called “flocks.” If you draw a “parliament” of 5 owls and a “gaggle” of 4 geese, how many birds do you draw altogether? Bonus: If you and 2 friends all draw penguins, and each of you draws 1 cute pair of them, how many penguin feet do you draw altogether?
Big kids: If you draw a 6-inch tall penguin and real penguins of that type are 38 inches tall, how much shorter is your drawing than a real penguin? Bonus: If you draw an ostrich at 1/2 its real height, and ostriches are 7 feet tall, how tall is your ostrich drawing in inches? (Hints if needed: A foot has 12 inches…and if you’re multiplying by 12 first, that’s like multiplying the number by 10, then multiplying the same number by 2 and adding that piece.)
The sky’s the limit: How many 11-inch-long sheets of paper do you need to tape together end to end to draw a full 7-foot ostrich on paper, if the pages overlap 1 inch at each end?
Answers:
Wee ones: Try to draw 3 nice round circles, and find the smallest one!
Little kids: 9 birds. Bonus: 12 penguin feet, since you draw 6 penguins (3 pairs) in total.
Big kids: 32 inches shorter. Bonus: 42 inches, since it’s half of 84. Or you can say your ostrich is 7 “half-feet” and a half-foot is 6 inches…and 7 x 6 is 42.
The sky’s the limit: You need 9 sheets, not 8. The first sheet gives you 11 inches, and each sheet after that adds just another 10 inches since 1 inch overlaps (you cutout each overlap for just 1 sheet, not both). That gives us 11, 21, 31, 41, 51, 61, 71, 81…so we need a 9th sheet to stretch past 84 (to 91 inches).
