Winter Portraits in Second Grade

Self-Portraits are my favorite project to teach.  I try to teach a self-portrait in every grade, K-5.  I was talking about how much I loved portraits in my after school teen class when I realized I never actually drew, painted, or made a formal self-portrait myself until I was in high school... and even then, I was so apprehensive about drawing the portrait, I made a taco covering half of my face!

I started a self-portrait project in second grade just before Winter Break.  The goals of this lesson were to learn about famous artists' self-portraits, introduce students to proper facial proportions, and draw what you see.  When these students were in first grade, they constructed a Fall Self-Portrait. Better start planning Spring Portraits for 3rd grade!

See more on our Artsonia.com gallery!

Zombies! Vampires! Monsters! and Selfies! Free monsters and identity slideshow download.

Fourth grade recently completed an intense unit on 19th century photography, self-portraits, and monsters.  I wrote a lesson plan last year describing how we turn one perfectly mapped self-portrait into a monster.

I was most pleased with my students' results this year.  We added depth with light and shade to our faces and learned a lot more about the history of photography.

I made a slideshow (Are you a monster?) that roughly discusses identity and a monster we'd turn in to.  I stole all the images off of Google images.  I tried to choose drawings of the monsters as opposed to photos of costumes or movie characters.  It was a fun little brainstorming lesson and my students liked seeing the monsters turned into art!

Be responsible for what you do and say! Worksheet for Daisies.

I'm not only an art teacher, I'm also my daughter's Daisy Girl Scout leader!  We were earning our petal for being responsible for what we say and do (the orange Mari petal if you are curious) at our last meeting.  I wanted a simple opening activity for the 15 minutes when girls are arriving and couldn't find anything cool.  I stole this frame off a Google search and put together this worksheet.  The first grade girls were supposed to write their name on the ribbon and draw a proud self-portrait.

First day art lesson for second grade - Hot Potato Self-Portraits, a success!

Second grade had been in school for four days already before they came to me- I am sure they didn't want to hear me discuss rules, routines, and basics of every corner of the room.  However, I was leery about jumping in with a project.  Instead, I decided to try an ice-breaker, and go from there.

We gathered in a circle and played a game of Hot Potato.  Only instead of a potato, we passed a garbage bag full of hats, necklaces, glasses, and scarves.  When the music stopped, the person holding the bag wasn't out, they just had to reach into the bag and pull out an accessory to wear.

I admit, it got a little loud.  Second grade was super excited, but they did a wonderful job following the game's rules and cheering on classmates.  I had planned for a 15 minute game which was also perfect to empty our bag.  Each student had at least one item to wear, with some sporting 2 or 3!

We returned to our new assigned seats.  Each child received a mirror and continued modeling their new attire.  I reviewed a bit of information about self-portraits, and asked the students to draw what they saw in the mirror.

The class remained engaged for 15-20 more minutes.  Some students had the chance to color, others did not.  Some kids were completely stumped at drawing hats, while others just went for it.  It was a lot of fun!