Kindergarten: Rainy Day Self-Portraits

Well, it's a dreary day of rain in Northern New York today, accompanied by Day 2 of DDI Camp.  That's Data Driven Instruction for those of you who may have not been forced to use it yet!  The concept behind it is understandable, but try to get two art teachers from different schools to meet for the first time and to agree on content to cover in their classes by the 10 week, 20 week and 30 week mark?  Ha, yeah right!

So, since it's a rainy day today, I'll leave you with my kinder's last project of the school year.  In alignment with their NYS Listening & Learning strand of "Seasons and Weather", we did these spring time portraits.  We discussed what the weather is like in spring (lots of rain!), what happens with the trees and flowers (they start to get leaves and bud!), and what a self-portrait is.

I took a different route with the kinder's for this project when demonstrating how to draw their body.  Usually, like with my pattern cow project, I would demonstrate one step at a time and have the kids do the step on their own paper before moving to the next.  This time, I demonstrated how to draw the umbrella and then had them do the umbrella.  Next, I showed them how to draw their entire body, starting with their head, the neck, their shoulders and arms, torso, legs and feet.  Then, I let them go to town!

We put in a horizon line (always important and something I stress!) and added good details for spring time.  This all happened in one class period.  The only thing I didn't allow them to do was color the sky, which is usually against the rules!

On the second day of the project, I gave each student a straw and we went over proper straw etiquette (no spitting at others, if you drop it on the floor get a new one, etc.).  I had the students turn their papers upside down and I then went around to the best "Mona Lisas" and gave them a few drops of blue ink on their paper.  Students blew through the straw to make the ink run and look like rain!  Once they were done with the blue, they received a few drops of turquoise, rinse, repeat and done!