An Inclusive Early Childhood
Development Program
My Portrait
Creating a life-size self-portrait
Learning Objectives Including All Children Arts Experience
Artist With a Disability Learning Log Learning at Home
Learning through the Arts - Start with the Arts visual arts lessons provide opportunities for children to create through drawing, painting, constructing and sculpting. Children learn to view works of art with sensitivity and appreciation. They are involved actively with expressing themselves through manipulating and controlling tools and working with the concepts of color, line, shape, form and pattern. - More about Learing through the Arts
Learning Objectives
- Express thoughts and feelings about the experience of creating a portrait.
- Identify the various movements and functions of different parts of the body.
- Build vocabulary related to parts of the body and creating a portrait.
- Use scissors to cut along a curved line.
- Create a life-size portrait that shows movement and unique features that characterize oneself.
Teach children the American Sign Language signs for the main parts of the body and use these signs during the lesson.
For children with limited dexterity, provide self-stick colored dots or stickers, as well as large pieces of ribbon, yarn and fabric. Assist by spreading glue where they wish to add collage materials.
For children who are blind, consider providing a tape recorder for them to record an oral portrait. Allow time for them to practice what they want to record. Give suggestions like: Describe your hair, your height, the way you sit and the way you move. Are you smiling?
Remember to provide these options to all children, not singling out children with disabilities.
Getting Started
When planning this lesson, consider dividing it into large and small group activities.
- For a large group, introduce the lesson with the story and the awareness activity. Then, with the help of a teacher’s aide or older students, have two to three children at a time create their portraits.
- Set up an area for the tracing, cutting and drawing part of this lesson. Include a mirror, an open space for the child to lie on the mural paper and an art table with a variety of supplies. Some children may need several days to complete their portraits.
Connecting to Past Experience
Invite children to notice their different body parts. Notice your hands (or another body part). Shake them, wave them, create a dance with them. What else can hands do? Continue with other parts of the body. Add humor. Notice your ears. Shake them, wave them, create a dance with them. What can ears do?
Expressing Through Art
Introduce portrait as an art form. Show an array of portraits. Ask children to describe the people in the portraits. Notice how they are holding their hands. Notice their legs. Are they shown in the portrait? Are the people sitting quietly or does the portrait show them moving?
Describe the process for creating life-size portraits.
Children will:
- Select a large piece of paper for their bodies.
- Lie on the paper. Strike a pose. Have your arms do something. Tilt your head. Hold still while a helper outlines your pose.
- Draw their face, hair, clothing and shoes with markers or crayons.
- Cut out their portraits with the assistance of a helper.
- Add something special to their portraits like a hat or a medal or a special necklace.
Talking About Art
- Tell us about your portrait. What are your hands doing? How are your legs positioned?
- Tell us about the fancy hat you are wearing in your portrait. Is your portrait like any of the portraits we looked at?
- Ask questions about how the portrait would have been different two years ago. What do you think you will look like next year?
Extending the Experience
- Class writing experience- Label the body parts on a body outline.
- Create additional portraits – drawings of friends, family and/or pets.
- Create a Class Book about parts of the body. Each child writes and illustrates a page. For example, the sentence on each page starts with a body part and ends in a verb: “Hands (body part) can wave (verb),” and each page includes an illustration of that body part.
(TIP: Provide a variety of collage materials and glue.)
Introducing An Artist With Disabilities
Chuck Close is an American artist who was born in Washington state in 1940. When he was five years old, his father gave him an easel for his birthday, and he began to learn how to paint. (An easel is a stand that holds what you are painting on upright.)
When Mr. Close was a young boy, he had a hard time learning things in school because he had learning disabilities. People thought that because he didn’t learn things the way other kids did, he was stupid. Mr. Close kept painting, though!
In 1988, he had a blood clot in his spinal cord that left him a quadriplegic – someone who cannot move his arms or legs. After a lot of physical therapy, he began to be able to move his arms a little bit. This disability did not stop him from creating art; in fact, he challenged himself to find a way to paint again.
Today, from his wheelchair, Mr. Close straps a paintbrush to his hand and still paints large portraits that are sometimes eight or nine feet tall.
Invite children to draw a portrait and label the body parts.
Invite children to write or dictate a story to you about their experience making their life-size portrait.
Suggested Title: This Is Me
Dear Family,
As a class, each child created a life-size portrait! We read books about different body parts, talked about portraits and then created our own portraits. Please ask your child about his or her experience. Also, take a look at the ideas for continued learning. You and your child may enjoy learning more about portraits together.
Talking With Your Child
What did you like most about creating your portrait? Name the different parts of your body. Show me what they can do. What can your hands do? What can your feet do?
With your child…
If available, look at family pictures and photo albums, or look at pictures of children of different ages in magazines. Create a THEN and NOW list similar to the one below.
| THEN I crawled. I had to be fed. I talked “baby talk.” |
NOW I walk. I eat by myself. I talk like a big kid. |
Visit an art museum or an art gallery. Look for portraits. Talk about who the portraits are of and what the person might be like.
Collect old magazines that can be cut up for the ART BOX.
Arts Vocabulary
Portrait – A painting, drawing or photograph of a person or small group of people, like a family portrait. Usually, the focus of the work is the person’s face.
| Materials |
Art reproductions of portraits – a variety of people of different ages, cultures, Mural paper in white, brown and/or other colors Dark crayon or water-based marker for outlining Full-length mirror Markers, crayons Variety of paper scraps of various colors and textures, as well as foiled paper Pieces of yarn, ribbon, stickers Preparation: Cut mural paper into pieces about the length of children’s bodies. Arrange for helpers to assist with this lesson |
