Table of Content
- Introduction
- Importance of Teaching Self-Portraits to Children
- Creative Self-Portrait Ideas for Kindergarteners
- Tips for Facilitating Self-Portrait Activities
- Conclusion
Self-portraits are portraits of oneself done by oneself. Inculcating them in schools and preschoolers' curricular activities is essential as it has children focusing on themselves and everything that makes them unique.
Credit: Pinterest
Importance of Teaching Self-Portraits to Children
Self-portraits teach preschoolers about their features like eyes, nose, hair, and mouth. Self-portraits play a part in personal development and learning. Drawing self-portraits can foster self-identity and communication development. It is a beautiful way to build memories with your child and keep their art as a reminder of their innocence.
Creative self-portrait ideas for Kindergarteners
Let us look at some self-portrait ideas for preschoolers.
1. Play dough sensory self-portraits
Credit: Pinterest
Want your preschoolers to express their creative sides? Then, play dough is your go-to for younger children to develop motor and creative thinking skills. Let’s learn how to make self-portraits using Play-Doh.
Materials required:
Rolling pin
Buttons, beads
Threads
Bowl
Googly eyes
Take a play dough and roll it out using a rolling pin. Once the dough is flat, carve out a circle using a bowl.
Credit: The Stay-at-Home Mom Survival Guide
Once you have a circularly shaped face, take googly eyes and fix them on the play dough for eyes. Next, take a button and fix it on the dough for your nose. Now, take beads to make a smile on the face of play dough. Take threads for making hair strands and fix them on the dough. Your playdough self-portrait is ready!
2. Cereal Box Self-Portrait Craft for Kids
Credit: Pinterest
This easy and fun art will let your child use their imagination. For this, let us assemble the materials required:
An empty cereal box(If you don’t have cereal boxes, then alternately prefer pizza boxes)
White primer
Paint brushes
Mirror
Pencil
The first step is to apply white primer on the cereal boxes to cover up the writing on the boxes. Ask your preschoolers to take a mirror and look at themselves carefully. Ask them what they see about their faces, and ask them to draw hairs, eyes, nose, and mouth by taking reflection on mirrors as their reference. Let them choose colors to fill out various features. By doing this, the children will channel their creativity and imagination. Let the cereal boxes dry naturally, or you can blow dry them.
3. Face Sticky Easel Activity
Credit: Pinterest
This activity will create a sense of literacy development and improve motor skills. Gather the materials and start this fun activity with your toddler.
For this, we need the following:
Contact paper
Beads
Googly eyes
Glue
Start by fixing the paper on a board with the easel sticky side out. Outline a face with a pencil. Let your toddler take over while you sit back and enjoy the process. Most preschoolers and even toddlers know about their bodies and facial features. You will see them sticking the googly eyes in the correct position, but there are tons for the nose and beads for smiling or sadness. You will be surprised to see them create a self-portrait art using a few things, but after completing this, you will see a sense of happiness in their eyes as if they have accomplished an excellent task.
4. Paper Plate and Button Self-Portraits
Credit: Pinterest
Create a paper plate and button self-portrait art with your toddler or older kids. Self-portrait activity is a unique way of interacting with kids and encouraging them to bring out their creative sides. Grab a mirror, paintbrush, glue, acrylic paint, beads, buttons, and construction paper. Take a paper plate and paint it with colors matching the skin tone. Cut construction paper in the shape of eyes and fix them and the paper plate. Take buttons and fix them on the center of eye-shaped construction paper with the help of glue.
Use pom pom threads for hairs. Use glue to fix beads for a smiley face. There it is, your paper plate and button self-portraits.
5.Sea Shell Self-Portrait Art
Credit: Fantastic Fun & Learning
Kids of all ages can do this art project. What a fun way! Gather your supplies and begin creating this fun art activity.
Begin by collecting sea shells and sand from the beach. Take a model clay, form a ball, and flatten it to form the face of your portrait. Put sand on the clay to cover it entirely. Put seashells resembling eyes, noses, and smiles on the clay. Let the clay dry.
6. Magazine faces
Credit: Pinterest
This fantastic cut-paste self-portrait project will be a fun art activity for your child. Ask your kid to outline their head and then cut pictures of their eyes, nose, and mouth. Glue the cutouts on the face. And it’s done! Simple, wasn’t it?
7. Loose Parts Self-Portraits
Credit: Housing a Forest
Another fun project to create with your toddler can be making self-portraits using loose parts. With this activity, children develop spatial composition and decision-making skills.
Materials required:
A base like wood, fabric, etc.
Small loose parts such as plastic, metal, ceramic, etc.
Glue
Mirror
Ask your child to sit in front of a mirror and have them look at themselves. Place the base on the table and ask your child to use loose parts that they have with them to make a self-portrait. Once they have selected the loose parts, ask them to glue each part in their respective places. Let it dry. Your easy-peasy self-portrait project is ready.
8. Self-Portrait Collage
Credit: Instagram
Learners can outline their faces and attach them on a cardstock. They can use clay or woolen threads to make hairs and hands. Later, they can paste cutouts of their photos on the body to show what they are all about.
9. Lego Self-Portrait Activity
Credit: Pinterest
Challenge your preschoolers with this Lego self-portrait activity. All your kids need is a base Lego plate and some bricks. Ask them to choose the color of their favorite Lego bricks of their liking and let them create their self-portrait.
10. Nature faces
Credit: Fantastic Fun & Learning
A fun-tastic activity to do with your preschoolers to get them to explore nature. Guide your child to collect branches, sticks, and leaves for their art projects. Cut out an oval shape from cardboard and spread out the collected items. Ask your child to make eyes, nose, mouth, and hair similar to theirs. Paste the collected items in their respective places to resemble a self-portrait.
11. Body Trace Self-Portrait
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Body tracing self-portraits can be challenging but an excellent way to develop their artistic skills. You will need a drop cloth, sharpies, markers, watercolors, and pipettes. Get your child to draw their head and body with a Sharpie. Add details, and turn over to the absorbent side to add watercolors.
Mix some watercolor paint with water to get a liquid texture. Use a dropper to squeeze colors on the absorbent side. The final step is cutting out the silhouette and gluing it to a poster board. A killer project for your kid is ready!
12. Imagination Self-Portrait Reflection
Credit: The Mum & the Mom
Let your child’s imagination run wild with this idea. You will need watercolor paper, cardstock, or cardboard. Black and white photograph of your child, watercolors, glue.
Ask your preschoolers to paint or make prints using watercolor with their fingers or palm however they want. Cut out the outline of your child’s silhouette and paste it on the watercolor paper on which they have created the background. Additionally, they can add other elements to make it look even more special and attractive. A creative and fun way to express ideas!
13. Watercolor Self-Portrait
Credit: Doodlebug Dabblings
Want your kids to create custom children portraits painting from a photo? Fret not. Your kids can easily make funny self-portraits using watercolor by channeling their inner Van Gogh. Every preschool teacher must do this once in their classroom activity and hang them on the walls. Guide them by pointing out how much of their body/ self they will paint and then teach them how to draw simple head and shoulders, keeping their reference photo in mind.
Once your students complete their drawings, tell them to fill that drawing with watercolors and guide them on how much water to use. You will be amazed at their knowledge of colors and their creative ideas
14. Self-Portrait Craft with Beans
Credit: Happy Toddler Playtime
This art activity is popular among children in the upper elementary. Gather different colored beans and challenge your students to create the best portrait that resembles them. Provide cardstock to each student in your class and invite them to outline their faces using a pencil. Then, ask them to take the beans and start coloring their self-portraits.
15. Wikki Stix Self-Portrait Art
Credit: Parent Map
Make your kids sit in front of the mirror and let them mold shapes using Wikki Stix. Help your kids build a face. Use scissors to cut longer stix and stick them on the construction paper. Have your kid add any other thing in the art of their liking.
16. Superhero Self-Portraits
Credit: Artful Parent
Every child at some point in childhood imagines himself to be a superhero after watching it on television and making them their role model.
Ask your kids to draw themselves on the drawing paper and add a cape or mask. Fill it with colors of their choice and also tell them to write their name on the paper.
17. Paddle Puppet Craft
Credit: Happy Hooligans
A great craft idea for puppet shows. These are very easy to make without any fuss. Take a paddle template, cardboard, pencil, scissors, paint, and paintbrush. Ask your kids to paint the paddle puppet with paint using skin colors. After the paint has dried completely, ask your kids to draw eyes, nose, and lips and fill the features using colors. Your kids are all set for their great puppet show on Thanksgiving!
18. Styrofoam Self-Portrait Activity
Credit: Happy Hooligans
An excellent activity for refining motor skills, styrofoam self-portrait is the best among them all. Assemble a styrofoam head, other colors, skin color acrylic paint, brush, yarns, ribbons, and ornaments(optional). Begin with painting skin color paint on your styrofoam heads. Fill in the details on the face with other colors. Additionally, they can add ornaments or hairs made from yarns or ribbons. Your kid’s self-portrait styrofoam is ready to make its mark.
19. Cheerios Self-Portrait Idea
Credit: Pinterest
Kids must outline their faces with facial features on cardstock paper or cardboard. Using a glue paste, cheerios on the paper with facial features visible. To achieve distinctiveness between eyes, nose, mouth, and hair, use different colored Cheerios. A crunchy Cheerio self-portrait is ready.
20. Beginning of the Year Self-Portrait
Credit: The Educators’ Spin on It
The beginning of the year self-portrait is an astounding time to start your child’s education profile. This activity hardly requires 20 minutes to complete and is easy. Just ask them to draw a picture of themselves and color it. Also, ask them to describe three things they like about themselves.
Tips for Facilitating Self-Portrait Activities
1) Creating a Supportive Environment
To facilitate self-portraits activity among preschoolers, create a supportive environment. Don’t create a restrictive space where your child feels caged. Let them find their way to express themselves. Ask them the story behind creating self-portraits, why they used a specific eye color, etc.
Navigate them if they feel lost mid-way. Ask them what the problem is and what they cannot figure out. By doing so, you can create a supportive environment to let them channel their inner mini-artist.
2) Celebrating Artistic Achievements
Appreciate your preschooler’s artistic achievements. Give them a gentle pat on the back and say motivating things to encourage them to build their confidence. Give them validation that they have done an excellent job. Frame your child’s portrait art in your bedroom to show how much you appreciate them. A great keepsake for yourself to cherish them.
Conclusion
In this article, we learned about creative self-portraits for preschoolers. We also learned why including creative self-portrait activities in your kid's curriculum is essential. There are many ways for your child to create self-portrait projects to build their cognitive and motor skills.
In today’s generation, where cell phones have taken over, resulting in delayed cognitive and behavioral development of children, finding other activities where your child uses their mind and creativity to make art projects becomes crucial.
