Self-portrait Inspiration

The other day, J.I. was drawing a picture of himself and his family. 

I realized that we have not worked on self-portraits or drawing of people this year. So, at the end of the day, Ms. Shaylene, Ms. Danah and I started to discuss this. Here is what we came up with. 

Our studio has been transformed from our Mother's Day area to a self-portrait studio. Ms. Shaylene, Ms. Danah, Mr. Patterson, Mrs. Hie, and myself did our own self-portraits before school to show and have on display. Mrs. Rogers is going to do one as well. 

We had a group meeting on the carpet to discuss all of the new areas in the class today. Of course, the new studio provocation caught their eyes. Instead of telling them what it is, we decided to let them explore it themselves. The children were intrigued. 

"I think this is Ms. Stacey!"

"I know this is Ms. Danah. She has glasses."

"And this is Mr. Patterson. His name is Dave and he signed his name Dave on the corner."

"But who is this?"

It was an interesting to listen to them and watch them as they used their own thoughts to figure the pictures out. When they returned to the carpet, I told them that we did self-portraits. 

Ms. Stacey: "What is a self-portrait?"

M.H: "It is a picture of yourself."

The children then went on to thinking and learning time. The self-portrait studio was packed! 

LM.W was hard at work glancing between mirror and sketch pad. 

R.H. was concentrating incredibly hard. He began by drawing a circle with dots for eyes, nose, and a line for a mouth. Then he drew sticks for legs and arms. 

"I'm done Ms. Stacey."

"Hmmm, R.H. can you show me in the mirror where you see your arms and legs?"

"I see it on my page."

"But, can you see them in the mirror?"

"No."

"What do you see in the mirror?"

"I think I want to erase this."

He then truly looked at himself in his mirror. He concentrated so hard and took his time. I feel like this picture speaks volumes!

E.R. was working on her portrait today. She was doing an amazing job. 

Here is her final portrait. It truly does look like her! Excellent job!

S.S. concentrated extremely hard on each aspect of his self-portrait. When describing it at share circle, he explained that he worked hard on the details around his eyes. 

S.S.: "I have these parts here in my eyes (pointing to his eyelids) and dark parts under my eyes. I don't know why I have them. And I noticed I have two different circles in my eyeballs. These ones then the black dots in the middle. I also worked really hard on my ears and drawing the holes on each side. This side is a lot better than the other side though."

There are more to come too! I cannot wait to see as the children develop more and more and add more details to their drawings!

Here are some more of the self-portraits that have been done this week. It amazes me how much they are concentrating, and how much they actually look like them when they hold them up!