Family Portraits

A couple weeks ago I wrote about Todd Parr inspired art related to The Feelings Book.  Mr. Parr will be visiting our building in November, and my students and I are quite excited.  We are now in our family unit and are enjoying many of his family books.  This week we have been drawing our families with Todd Parr's artwork as an inspiration.  I wanted you to see different students' work, so the pictures you will see below in each step will be from a variety of students.

I worked with 2 students at a time on this project.  We started by counting how many people are in the child's family.  I then referred students to Parr's artwork and help them draw their families.  I am not an artist, so it is a minor miracle that they look like people!

After students drew their families, I traced their lines with permanent marker.

Once the tracing was finished, I invited students back to color their families.  Markers are available to make the drawings pop.

Finally, I used masking tape to tape them to a cardstock-weight mat to finish them off.

These will be hung in the hallway next week as we have Grandparents Day.  Our family unit fell at a great time this year.  I'm loving their work!!

Students were also invited to bring a family picture to display in our classroom library.  I have been collecting frames for directions and things over the past couple years, so as students bring a picture, they get to choose the frame the photo goes in.  We have about 3/4 of the photos back now.  Those who do not bring a photo will get to draw their family to add to a frame.  We might even just make a color copy of their work hanging in the hallway to frame in the room.

How do you celebrate families in your classroom?