Free to be you and me!

During our All About Me unit, we explored the physical traits and personal interests that make us unique and special.  We made these mixed-media self-portraits over several days. 

First, we created our heads using construction paper and yarn.  I broke this down into two days.  We used a template to create the head and students used scraps to make the ears.  The next day, we added yarn for hair and glued it to our background paper.  The background paper represents our favorite colors. Throughout the process, I made mirrors available to students so they could closely observe their physical traits before selecting materials.  The kinder pictured above was absent the day we added hair, so here he is in the final stages of creating his self-portrait adding some hair!

 

Then, we used watercolor paints to create a shirt.  When they were dry, we cut them out and glued them to our self-portraits.  We used scraps to make a neck, arms, and hands!

 

We used crayons to embellish our shirts with images that captured our personal interests and favorite things.  When we went on a museum walk, the pictures helped promote disussion among the children.

All of the children were really engaged throughout this project!  After we finished creating our self-portraits, each child displayed his/her self-portrait at his/her seat, creating a class museum.  We went on a museum walk and talked about commonalities and differences among the self-portraits and children's interests.  After our museum walk, we displayed our self-portraits on a bulletin board in the hall for others to enjoy!