I've given all of my students the same self portrait assignment this week. We've spent time looking at a couple of Vincent van Gogh's self portraits and discussing them. Then they are each given an 8" by 11" paper on which to draw their own self portrait. They are also told that they will complete a similar self portrait at the end of the year so we can compare and contrast the two.
My kindergarten students are given much more direction while doing this assignment. After all the instruction, I gave my only hour long kindergarten class about five minutes to work. Then I walked through the room to check on their progress and understanding. All of them had nice pictures of people, but many were missing facial features. We discussed the need for eyes, nose, mouth, ears, and hair and glasses if you have them. We also reviewed drawing things that look like the parts or features each of us actually has, like making hair curly or long.
One picture really stood out from all of the others. A very energetic boy had worked hard on his self portrait. It had all the correct features. There was just one problem: his little self portrait was only about the size of a quarter on his almost letter sized sheet of paper!