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!

"I Ain't Gonna Paint No More" Portraits with K & 1

I absolutely LOVE a good children's book about "art" and when I find one that I can do a lesson with I LOVE it even more. If you have not seen or read the the "I Ain't Gonna Paint No More" by Karen Beaumont then you are seriously missing out. You can find it on amazon :)

I already had the book when I stumbled upon a post on pinterest but of course I cannot find it**, even with my EPICALLY organized pinterest boards.

**FOUND IT!

This project kicked off my portrait unit with K-6. I knew it was going to be my last display so I wanted things to be very colorful! There is a slight variation between Kinders and 1st..... Kindergarten was basically a 1 day because it was just their heads. 1st grade took two classes because we did whole body.

These two made it into the spring art show!

Kindergarten!
Day 1: Started off the day with reading the book and a little drawing demo of how to draw yourself. My favorite part of the intro was making them put their hands on their heads and running their hands down their face and figuring out what shape our heads were. NOT CIRCLES--was the point of that. We talked about all the parts of our faces and I mentioned how people forget eyebrows and ears a lot when they draw, so our rule became if you have it draw it! That was it applied to glasses, hair length, etc. The silliest part was that I showed how to do a bunch of different hair on one head so my portrait had like five different hair styles in one. Perfect for when it was crazy hair day on the same day I did this with one of the kindergarten classes. After the discussion and demo I sent them off to work, first drawing in pencil, then tracing in sharpie. For painting with the watercolors the only rule was to paint in rainbow order so we did not have to change our water. We wanted our pictures to look like our character all messy with paint and no "real colors" just like our illustrator did. Some kiddos just couldn't handle the chaotic-ness of the paint anywhere any color, and had to paint things "correct". Type A and B personalities in the making :)

Day 2: At the start of class, before I introduced the next project, we cut out our portraits and glued them to black paper!

First Grade!
Day 1: I talked about the same things with the 1st graders as I did Kindergarten, but added drawing the body. We talked about how we are not stick figures and have different sides to all of our "parts" my favorite accidental word choice explanation that I needed up sticking with was that our "armpit shape" happens three times when we draw us. Better than saying CROTCH! Drawing and sharpie took the whole class for these guys.

Day 2: Painting! Same exact thing as Kindergarten.

Day 3: Cut and glued to black before the start of our next project!

100% I will be doing this project again!!

Any great children's books to recommend that make a great portrait project? I'd love to hear from you!