From the beginning of the year we have tried to get to know our new friends better, and help them learn more about ourselves. In a PK classroom, that means lots of opportunities to interact, play, and socialize (Social-Emotional Development) while exploring self, friends, and families (Social Studies, Science). It also means lots of opportunities to think about who we are, and gain important insights about our own selves. Our self-exploration journey was inspired by character traits in the books we read (Literacy) and real portraits (Art).
“What is a portrait?” was the first question we asked when we heard the teacher saying that strange word. “A portrait is a picture of a person that helps us see what he looks like and learn a few things about him”. Well… in order to understand it better, we needed to experience it. So, we looked in books for photos of persons (main characters). We found Olivia, David, Chrysanthemum, Elmer and Jeff. We looked at the pictures and described with words what they look like. We also read the stories, and wrote down all the new information about them. The more we were getting to know them, the more we felt familiar with their characters, and the more we related their stories to our own lives and experiences, the more we learned about ourselves and friends!
“What is a portrait?” was the first question we asked when we heard the teacher saying that strange word. “A portrait is a picture of a person that helps us see what he looks like and learn a few things about him”. Well… in order to understand it better, we needed to experience it. So, we looked in books for photos of persons (main characters). We found Olivia, David, Chrysanthemum, Elmer and Jeff. We looked at the pictures and described with words what they look like. We also read the stories, and wrote down all the new information about them. The more we were getting to know them, the more we felt familiar with their characters, and the more we related their stories to our own lives and experiences, the more we learned about ourselves and friends!
In more detail:
Elmer taught us a new word, “patchwork”. We decorated the first letter in our names with tissue papers, to make it look like him. Elmer likes to spend time with his friends and to make jokes. We all agreed that this is something we enjoy doing as well.
Chrysanthemum was the character with the longest name! She motivated us to count how many letters we have in our names, and talk about short and long names. We also distinguished the letters we have in our names from those we don’t have. We got inspired to learn who or what we were named after. Our parents were great helpers in this investigation.
David is the very well-known naughty boy, who always gets in trouble. However, he is not the only one… We have to admit that sometimes we also get in trouble. In the classroom we discussed those times and drew pictures about them.
Jeff is a very capable boy, who does a million things on his own (or he thinks he does). Well, we are very proud to say that there are a million things that we can do on our own as well. We discussed it in the classroom, and drew a picture so everyone can see and learn what we are capable of.
Olivia helped us focus on our names, families, and different kinds of art. What letters do we need to write our names? What are the first letters in our name? How many members do we have in our family? Who are they? We were involved in a variety of activities about our names and families. We drew our families, molded them out of play-dough, and brought real photos to share with our friends. Olivia loves going to museums and looking at famous paintings. She also has a famous portrait on her bedroom wall. Olivia’s passion inspired us to look at famous portraits and see which one we like the most. We looked at them through the projector, as if we were visiting a gallery. . From Leonardo’s iconic Mona Lisa to Andy Warhol’s equally iconic Marilyn, from Picasso’s Weeping Woman to Zack Freeman’s junk portraits, we were exposed to and inspired by different kinds of art. Some of them seemed nice to us, some others strange, funny, or even a little scary., but each of them was unique! We also brought art books in the classroom and went through them looking for portraits. We found a lot!
After all this investigation, we were ready to create an actual portrait of ourselves. A self-portrait involves learning about different parts of our faces and bodies. First, we focused on learning words for as many different parts of our faces as we could. We described our faces in details and played games such as “Simon Says” and “Draw & Erase a Face”.
We also sketched out our faces by tracing our characteristics with chalk markers on transparent, plastic pockets. The results were very interesting and funny! We loved looking at them on the board, trying to guess whose sketch each of them is, and flipping them over, to find out if our guess was correct.
Can you guess who is who?
Now that we knew what our faces look like, it was the time to make the real portraits. Each of us chose the kind of art he/she wanted to try for his/her portrait. We sought our parents’ help in gathering materials we could use. Very soon we had a rich library of various materials to choose from. Before we start creating, we traced our heads to make the portraits life-size.
That way we created these unique self-portraits!
Junk Art Portraits
Pop Art Portraits
Picasso Style Portraits
Join us as we celebrate our individuality and uniqueness. these self-portraits provide you a special glimpse into just this. They will remind all of us that it is each child, along with his/her strengths, successes and accomplishments, which creates the formation of a true classroom community. It is our hope to build a community of unique individuals who will learn to soar and succeed as a community and as individuals to great heights!