Kindergarten Selfies!

Not sure the term "selfie" applies when painting rather than holding your phone toward yourself... but I'm going with it!

Today we finished a new favorite project of mine. It's a simple painted self portrait with their name... that's it. Nothing that flashy and new, but so kindergarten...so cute...and gives you such a great glimpse into each child's abilities and maturation.

I modeled this first and my only mistake was painting myself in a dress....because I noticed some of the boys' shirts were very "dress-ish" and I think every girl opted for a dress....next time, t-shirt and shorts it will be!

But these are great... and just kindergarten in a nutshell!

To prep...
I typed up my class names in letter boxes. You could do letter boxes that indicate whether a letter is tall, short, or "goes underground," but I just opted for regular letter boxes. You can download a copy here of the letter boxes PDF file {this freebie file just has the alphabet and I strongly suggest you type out your actual names to make it easier on you.} I also put a blank page in the download which you could use if you wanted to hand write the names. And just for fun... here is a download of the same thing as a Word doc, but you will need to add your own fun font!

I had all the names cut up {and therefore mixed up} in baggies. Once the paintings were dry the kids had to spell their name on their painting. I didn't correct them or make any changes to what they did. You can see how this is very educational for me as a quick start of the year assessment.

Side note: We have been doing many activities with their names and the names of their classmates.

This little friend was done and just as he was about to leave he caught himself that the "a" was backwards and flipped around himself.. self correcting already!? Not bad. There were a few kiddos who had a few letters backwards, out of order or {my favorite} written "mirror backwards."

Although this is a great assessment tool, I am thinking for next year I am going to have them arrange the letters first so I can see what they can do on their own, but I will help them to make it right.

Another teacher who used to do this idea had her class do these paintings both at the beginning and the end of the year as a "now and then" activity to show growth {in which case you would want a few reversals and such for the first one.}

I have never done it at the start and finish... but I used to do this same thing at the end of the year for Open House. They would paint themselves in the same way and then tell me a bit about their school year. I used a frame and took dictation for this.

You can see that these paintings have a bit more detail... that is kinder in May vs. kinder in September.

If you don't already do something like this....Try these...any time of year... because you see the personality of each child in their paintings! You can imagine the parents love to see them, too!