Love these self portraits

My project of focus to show growth for this year was self portraits.  My goal was to have students draw three self portraits over the course of the year. To keep it fun, students approached each portrait with a different theme.  In the fall, the focus was on teaching students to draw a self portrait emphasizing the placement and size of features as a teacher led activity..  A quick verbal review and demonstration proceeded the winter draw where students were to dress their portraits for the cold winter weather.  For the final portrait, 2nd grade students imagined themselves jumping on a trampoline or in a pike jump from gymnastics.  They began by tracing their hands and feet and then completed the work by adding the clothes and their own faces.  A verbal reminder was all that was given in terms of instructions for laying out the face.  I really do love how these turned out!

portrait one (fall)

portrait two (winter)

final portrait all same child

Portraits and T-Shirt design contest

Here are a few portraits by 2nd grade students.  The focus was on proportions and placement of features of the face.  To add a fun twist, students were to contemplate summer, we have two more weeks of school, and design a T-Shirt for a summer contest.  They really got into the idea of a contest so much so that they missed my saying the word "imagine" in reference to the contest.  So being a good sport about it all because I did not want to dampen their enthusiasm, I hit the dollar store and picked up funky little pencil toppers for everyone.  All the finished portraits were posted around the classroom with a small post-it attached.  Students circulated around the room and voted for the 4 favorite shirts.  As I took them down I was thrilled to see that every post-it had at least 4 votes so they were very kind voters and sensitive to the feelings of their classmates.  And in the end, they were all winners with me!

Students working on portraits in progress.