I absolutely LOVE a good children's book about "art" and when I find one that I can do a lesson with I LOVE it even more. If you have not seen or read the the "I Ain't Gonna Paint No More" by Karen Beaumont then you are seriously missing out. You can find it on amazon :) I already had the book when I stumbled upon a post on pinterest but of course I cannot find it**, even with my EPICALLY organized pinterest boards. **FOUND IT! This project kicked off my portrait unit with K-6. I knew it was going to be my last display so I wanted things to be very colorful! There is a slight variation between Kinders and 1st..... Kindergarten was basically a 1 day because it was just their heads. 1st grade took two classes because we did whole body. These two made it into the spring art show! Kindergarten! Day 1: Started off the day with reading the book and a little drawing demo of how to draw yourself. My favorite part of the intro was making them put their hands on their heads and running their hands down their face and figuring out what shape our heads were. NOT CIRCLES--was the point of that. We talked about all the parts of our faces and I mentioned how people forget eyebrows and ears a lot when they draw, so our rule became if you have it draw it! That was it applied to glasses, hair length, etc. The silliest part was that I showed how to do a bunch of different hair on one head so my portrait had like five different hair styles in one. Perfect for when it was crazy hair day on the same day I did this with one of the kindergarten classes. After the discussion and demo I sent them off to work, first drawing in pencil, then tracing in sharpie. For painting with the watercolors the only rule was to paint in rainbow order so we did not have to change our water. We wanted our pictures to look like our character all messy with paint and no "real colors" just like our illustrator did. Some kiddos just couldn't handle the chaotic-ness of the paint anywhere any color, and had to paint things "correct". Type A and B personalities in the making :) Day 2: At the start of class, before I introduced the next project, we cut out our portraits and glued them to black paper! First Grade! Day 1: I talked about the same things with the 1st graders as I did Kindergarten, but added drawing the body. We talked about how we are not stick figures and have different sides to all of our "parts" my favorite accidental word choice explanation that I needed up sticking with was that our "armpit shape" happens three times when we draw us. Better than saying CROTCH! Drawing and sharpie took the whole class for these guys. Day 2: Painting! Same exact thing as Kindergarten. Day 3: Cut and glued to black before the start of our next project! 100% I will be doing this project again!! Any great children's books to recommend that make a great portrait project? I'd love to hear from you!