Last week in a class with some of my Kindergarten-aged students we watched a youtube clip of the Millennial fireworks at the Eiffel tower.
After watching the video I had each of my students draw an Eiffel tower, instructing them to leave it completely bare. I then had the children exchange drawings with their classmates and decorate each other’s Eiffel towers. My students had the option of decorating their classmates’ Eiffel towers any way they chose; the only directive was to make them special for each other. It is hard to say which my students liked more; decorating their friends’ Eiffel towers or receiving the Eiffel towers their friends had created for them.
I would love to take full credit for the activity but it was the mother of one of the families I teach who inspired this communal drawing activity. She told me about a birthday game she knew of: Children sit in a circle at a table. Each child draws something on a paper and then passes the paper to the child to his/her right. That child turns the paper 90 degrees and adds another drawing before passing the paper to the child on his/her left. The activity continues until all the papers are decorated to the children’s satisfaction.