What Does This Emotion Look Like? - 1st Grade

This is yet another lesson I have taken away from my supervising teacher. 1st graders are creating four faces with different emotions. This lesson takes two days. Each day I can get through two of the faces.

The first day, I pass out paper (and crayons if they did not bring any - this project is crayons only!) and walk the students through folding it into fourths. A lot of the students need help. They fold it wrong or do not know how to fold at all. I could just give them one sheet of paper for each, but I like that this displays the faces all together as a series for each student! Plus, folding is a nice skill to develop.

I start by writing an emotion on the board. I ask students to read the word to me. I always do "Happy" first. I ask students to show me what they look like when they are happy.

I then turn to the board and draw a face outline. It makes it easier for students if you split the board into two or four sections. This way they understand better that they are not drawing on top of the entire picture, but just in one section at a time.

I ask students to raise their hand and tell me one feature to add at a time. I am careful to remind students that eyes are not on the forehead. I also make sure students are adding eyebrows (these are so easy to forget!)

Here is what two of my examples on the board looked like (don't make fun!). I purposefully use many colors because I want my students to do the same. I also diversify the gender, hair color, eye color, etc. I don't always diversify skin color because I just use the green of the chalk board; however, I am going to start using more than just the "white" chalk for outlines. Hopefully, this will make the chalkboard's ethnicities look more diverse.

I try to do goofy things (like steam coming out of the ears) and add little details (bow, freckles, etc.) so that students will begin thinking about what details they can add. If the students finish early, I have them do a background for each section.

Here are some examples from one of my 1st grade classes!

This student accidentally drew two happy faces (he was just so happy!).

We fixed this by just adding another face that was sad.

This boy wanted his surprised face to have eyes popping out of their sockets!

What a creative idea!

I love the striped backgrounds.

Those are freckles, not pimples!

As you may have gathered, I have great artists in my 1st grade class!! We may have to do MORE emotions!