#oneword portraits for a new year

The beginning of a new year is a good time to take stock, reflect on the past

and make goals for the future.

In kindergarten that seems to mean drawing a portrait for the portfolio, so that the adults can see the change, growth and development since the last self portrait.

We created these line drawing self portraits with a #oneword in January, but they could be created at the beginning of the school year as well.

We started with our background papers. A soft and gentle (and fun) beginning.

It's fun to paint. It's even more fun to paint with unconventional tools. This time we chose fly swatters. Pretty fly swatters.

The kids chose their background paper colour, their paint colour and their fly swatter, and whacked away.

They were all colourful and textured. And individual.

Portrait time.

We did a practice drawing with pencils on recycled paper. Then we were ready for black markers.

I made the kids' portrait paper by copying and pasting their names and printing in grey.

Before the kids drew their portrait with black markers, we talked about heads, bodies, arms, legs, hair, faces - all the important portrait parts.

When the portraits were complete, I cut them out ready for gluing onto the backgrounds.

Then it was time to add the #oneword.

#oneword is a different way of looking at New Year's (or any time) resolutions. Instead of a list of goals/plans/hopes/ideas, you chose one word to focus on for the year. Read about it here.

To put it into kindergarten friendly language, I said that it was "a word that comes from our heads and our hearts, that we can focus on every day, all year long".

And they got it. We brainstormed ideas, and I printed them on our white board.

We had been noticing how words are printed in different ways to tell us how to read them and what feeling to have. (think Pigeon and Elephant and Piggie)

I chose six different fonts for the children to choose from. I asked them to choose a font that went with their #oneword.