Family Portraits

The 1st graders did such a great job on their family portraits!  I have a couple of helper moms in the first 1st grade class I have, (thank GOD!) so we started off by helping them draw the heads by asking how many adults and how many kids were in their families and drawing some big circle heads and simple shirts for them to fill in.  Then with our black crayons we learned how to draw eyes by looking at our partners' eyes and drawing them together on the board.  (Seeing these teeny 1st graders drawing irises and pupils instead of big dots was AMAZING and I've noticed a lot of them drawing "real" eyes on their other pictures this year too which is even better!)  Then we talked about an "easy" way to draw noses, (by feeling the big part of our noses and the top of the nostrils before going step by step on the board,) and with the mouths they were encouraged to include everything you can see when someone smiles, (that's why there are a lot of teeth).  We did a lot of looking at our partners' faces.  I reminded them to add details for each family member, (does your dad have a beard?  Is your mom's hair curly?  Does your sister have braces or glasses? etc.)  We used a set of multicultural markers, (which they're always begging to use for some reason,) for the faces, then I gave them the choice of using water color or marker for the rest.  The results were something I couldn't wait to send home for their families to see!