2nd Grade Self Portraits

My 2nd grade students spent 2 class periods toward the end of the year on these observational self portraits. We talked about facial proportions, I gave a demo, then the students looked in mirrors to draw. The first class period was spent exclusively on pencil drawing. In the 2nd class period, the students added color with colored pencils and color sticks. Self portraits can be tricky with kids... Some work really hard and some don't want to put in the effort because they are content with stick people. These are some of the portraits by students who really worked hard and didn't give up.

(The drawings are on 6x9 inch paper. I asked the students to aim for just head and shoulders to fill the space and checked the size of their head before they continued.)

Blonde hair can be confusing... especially when it's that blonde that's almost white. In this case, the student's hair was actually a lighter color than his skin so we tested some colored pencils and came up with a solution. On an unrelated note, the last portrait here demonstrates the most common problem for my 2nd graders: they colored the white part of their eyes a dark color. Hmmm...

I had ordered enough little sets of Crayola's Multicultural Colored Pencils that I could put a couple sets at each table. That would have worked great, if the students could keep the sets together. I get so frustrated with things like that- it should be easy, right? So, tired of sorting colored pencil sets when students did not put them away properly, I turned a plastic chips container into our new mc colored pencil storage. I cut the front of one box off and used packing tape to attach it to the container so it's easily identifiable. Now the students have to come up to choose their skin and hair color, then put it back when they are done.