At the beginning of the year I don't do much in the way of structured art lessons and I don't stress technique or skill. As one way of getting to know the children, to learn about their natural abilities as artists, I gave them hardly any guidance with this self portrait project aside from some quick modeling with a self portrait of my own. I did, however, want these self portraits to be bold and big, so I gave each student a piece of large brown construction paper (12" x 18") and a set of oil pastels. Giving them pastels, rather than crayons or colored pencils, is a way of keeping students away from the tendency to draw tiny. They were also each given a tagboard stencil of a head-and-shoulders shape to help with sizing and proportions. The results were pleasantly surprising, and to me resembled the style of Expressionist or Cubist artists. A few had a wonderfully luminous quality that only pastels can bring. This art project was also a means of getting the children to write an introductory paragraph about themselves. In fact, students had to write about themselves first before they were given their art materials, so their motivation to write was very strong! Students were given the following group of sentence frames to help them write:
My name is ______________________ and I am ______________ years old. My favorite things to do are _______________________________________. My goal in second grade is to __________________________. I was particularly fascinated by what students wrote down as their personal goals for 2nd grade. Many students wrote down subjects they enjoyed, such as math or reading (or art!). A few expressed goals such as "to not get distracted," or "to listen good." To see more self portraits, visit the Art Gallery page.
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One of my favorite beginning-of-the-year activities is the heart map. It's quite a visual, graphic, artsy, and simple way for children to express things that are near and dear to them, and a sneaky but engaging way of fitting in some writing as well. Moreover, I find heart maps to be valuable for me as the teacher, for me to learn about my new students. After completing our heart maps we share them with each other. A wonderful ice breaker activity, and we save them to use for future writing pieces. Here are some beautiful, detailed samples by my very own second graders:
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