By:  Tom Goldberg; Instructional Paraprofessional/Substitute Teacher

Students were taught how to draw a picture using one point perspective.  One point perspective is “a drawing method that shows how things appear to get smaller as they get further away, converging towards a single ‘vanishing point’ on the horizon line”.  Each student was given a piece of blank paper so that they could follow along step-by-step with what the teacher was doing on the board.  First, a point was placed directly in the center of the paper.  Students were told that this point is what is called the “vanishing point”.  Students then drew one line a across the paper and through the vanishing point horizontally, another line from the top right corner to the bottom left corner and through the vanishing point diagonally, and a final line from the top left corner to the bottom right corner and through the vanishing point diagonally in the other direction.  This format set the guidelines that the students followed to create a picture that appears to be getting further away.  From here, students were shown a few different ideas, such as how to make sidewalks, trees, and buildings that all appear to be getting further away.  However, students were free to draw anything they wanted, as long as it followed the theme of one point perspective.  With this, students were able to let their imaginations run freely, and this resulted in some truly spectacular pieces!