Symmetry Twins with 2nd Grade!

"One is a ninj from ninj gibin 3 the other is normal"

Continuing with my all grade theme of portraits I found this project on Pinterest from this post. I decided to stick with 2nd grade on this one and I'm glad I did. I think it is pretty obviously to most art educators that as students get older in elementary school and middle school, unless they are "art kids", they really loose confidence in their drawing, especially when it is of people. I myself am a victim of this! Still don't think I can draw people worth a dang! I am really glad that I ended up doing this with 2nd graders because they still have a lot of confidence in themselves. Luckily, I only had a handful of kiddos who dropped the "I CANNOT draw myself" line filled with the much implied CAPS LOCK sass...

I CAN statement for this project: I CAN draw a self-portrait and use symmetry to create a twin.

"One likes basket ball and the other like to dance"

Day 1: Started the class of talking with the 2nd graders about drawing self-portraits. The conversation sounded a lot like my conversation with Kinders and 1st grade for our Ain't Gonna Paint portraits, but we talked about how each person has really specific shapes to their face, eyes, hair, etc. and how we were going to use mirrors to draw ourselves. Like the blogger whom I got this project from, I also decided not to tell them about the "twin" and just instructed them to fold the paper in half and draw in pencil on the right side. I told them there was going to be something very special on that side and that they had to wait for the surprise. I did see a few actually using the mirrors but most just took off and started drawing without glancing into once (pick your battles!!). When they were finished they had to trace everything with sharpie. When the first kiddo was finished with sharpie we took a "field trip" to the biggest window area I could find in the school, at one school it was the art room :), and revealed my twin and then showed them how to trace using the light from the window. *Make sure the original is sharpie to the window otherwise the twin won't end up next to the original drawing!* Back in the room we talked about symmetry and I had a PDF of lots of examples from nature and otherwise. Lucky for me they had done some symmetry work with their classroom teachers so they totally got it ;) After our discussion it was back to drawing and as they were ready to trace I sent them to the windows with our assistant so I could stay in the room helping with drawing. ALMOST everyone finished sharpie!

Normally a drying rack and a table take up this space, this is more fun!

Day 2: Refreshed on symmetry. Talked about different things we could do with our twins...

Good vs. Evil
Human vs. Non-Human
Small Differences
Big Differences
Exact Same

Let me tell you....those top two were BY FAR favorites....The rest of the time was spent coloring with crayons or colored pencils and doing a short writing piece about how their twins were different or the same.

Check them out! Excuse the spelling in the captions. I'm just copying them :)

"One likes to be pretty and likes to be inside and one likes nature and getting dirty"

"One is Evil and one is good"

"They both like hocky football baseball and basketball and they're both good at all sport's even wiffle ball"

"One is a popstar and win gold medels. the oter twin love sumer and partys."

"they look like the same. but one like's cat's and the other one like's rabbit's."

"the oun with black hair likes maceup and julrey"

I cannot read this one!

"She is evil she alwez taks ovre my buding and she hats avry thing and she hats pets and she ehs red but most of all she is a vampiur" This is the sweetest little girl every cracks me up she wrote this!

"one is a vainpier and the other one is a tengger"

"we hate eachother I love legos he loves a girl"

"one is good one is evl"

"One is a ninja and the other is regular. The ninja has black clothes and the other has green clothes. The ninja has a mask and the other doesn't have a mask"

"One is a vampire"

100% doing this again, what a hoot!