ES Self Portraits

Shorecrest ES students in Ms. Ginger's class create self portraits several times each year.

"The children love being able to portray themselves in art," ES Teacher Ginger Thompson explained. "The teachers like to hang them on the wall to facilitate conversations between the children when they view each other's portraits. This month they have self portrait picture puzzles that they had to construct. We also create self portraits through many different mediums. We do them in clay, with loose parts, with nature, etc."

Creating self portraits has a variety of concrete benefits, including:

• It helps the children understand the basics of faces (head, two eyes, one nose, etc.) 
• It helps makes them aware of their own identity and how they are different/similar to their classmates. 
• Drawing helps to strengthen fine motor skills.
• Children can express their emotions through self portraits.
• Talking about different aspects of the portraits encourages language development.

At the end of the year parents/guaridans can compare the portraits students made as their skills progressed from month to month.