5th grade - Human Body Proportion

The fifth grade classes are working on drawing believable people.  That means figuring out all the correct bones and joints in a 'stick figure'.  This simply doesn't cut it...

Instead, we can use a drawing mannequin to help us figure out how to draw the basic 'skeleton' of a person... with joints, long bones, pelvic bone, and rib cage!

Here are some basic generalizations that can help you to draw people.  Keep in mind that they are generalizations, which means that all people are their own unique measures, but we can use these generalizations as a starting point.

• Adult humans are generally 7 to 8 heads tall.  
• Legs are half our height.
• Elbows align with the belly button and swing out in a arc.
• The neck is half the length of the head.
• Feet are the same length as the inside of the forearm.

Mrs. Watson's still life

Of course, I won't ask my students to do something that I am not willing to do myself! Here is the still life I made while the students made theirs. This was done on a large sheet of gray paper taped onto the front board. I used crayon, so there was no erasing allowed for me! Fortunately for the students, they got to use pencils... and erasers!