Self Portraits

Self portraits are a tool that we use in the room to help the children develop their abilities to talk about themselves and learn about others.  With young children it is a way to build their vocabulary of not only physical features, but of emotions and experiences. They are one of the ways that we help each child in the room develop their expressive, observational, and reflective skills.

They also provide a framework for teachers to observe fine motor development.  Throughout the year there will be drawing, painting, cutting, and many other fine motor skills used to create these portraits. It is a time in which the children are using these muscles in a natural setting in a manner much like they will throughout their lives.  Pencils, pens, brushes, and scissors are items that most of us continue to use as adults. 

The portraits are used as a tool to also help each child in the room to represent herself/himself, and listen to others. This allows us to begin the journey of learning about one another from one another. It allows us to uncover the uniqueness of each member of our classroom community and the things we have in common.  Each portrait is a celebration of how that person is feeling and seeing themselves today.  We not only display them, but we talk about the portraits.  This is a comfortable way for most children to develop their public speaking skills in front of the class.

Our first self-portraits will soon be hanging in the classroom near the door.  The directions for this portrait were to simply, "Draw yourself."  Nothing more than that was stated today. Future portraits will focus in on looking at specific physical details using mirrors, mixing our own unique paint colors, and representing emotions.

Future portraits will also be displayed. It is not uncommon to see them on the board near our classroom kitchen or on the back wall from the display wires.