I recently began a self portrait lesson with second grade and I debated over how I wanted to begin with them. I think I have talked on here before about how I often will let my students jump right in and draw with markers or the paint rather than having them start with a pencil. There is definitely a mixture of pros and cons to both approaches. I really wanted these portraits to have lots of personality and I find that sometimes when they start with a pencil, they end up erasing all of their "personality". So, we jumped right in and they "drew" with a paintbrush and black tempera paint. We will begin painting in the color next week. I like using colored construction paper too because I like the way the paint looks on top. I love this one with his head cocked to the side. He probably would have erased it...if we could :) Yes, I need to clean my tables. bad.