Self-Portraits with Leaves

For the final activity, the children created self-portraits of themselves using leaves. I decided to use Leaf Man by Lois Ehlert again for this activity and focused on the part of creating a self-portrait. An anchor chart describing what "self-portrait" meant was created and photographs of painters who have created portraits of themselves such as Van Gogh, Picasso, Frida Kahlo were shown to the children and we discuss how they were alike and how they were different. This was part of a lesson, I created for the children during the week with the purpose of using as an extension to the final activity of this project. And, so the journey of creating their self-portrait began, the only catch was that instead of using paint, they were going to use leaves!





I really enjoyed doing this project with the children. I was able to have more one-on-one time with them and learned lots about them. Although its a lot of work and sometimes it was a let down because I had to change things, it was a learning experience and like I have said before it is always great to learn how to let go. This project is something that I will encourage all teachers out there to do with your class, it will be a lot of work but it will end up been the most rewarding thing for both you and the students.

Creating with Leaves Education Project Approach Student Teaching