First Grade Crazy Hair

Students learned a bit about drawing cartoon faces and various lines. We learn about line shape and direction in Kindergarten, so this is a good review for the children.

I try to encourage the children to draw  eyes a bit different than they are used to to help give them different symbols to draw from in the future. For these cool eyes, they start with the U shape for the iris, then add a V inside it for the pupil, and draw the outer shape of they eye. They finish it up with an eyelid, some lashes, and an eye brow. Next students make the nose and the ears. We add more detail to the ears than we normally do. Students draw a silly mouth before I show them mine, to encourage creativity. Finally we draw the hooded sweatshirt step by step adding the zipper if they choose.

Next comes the hair. We start at the scalp and draw some zig zag lines, some wavy lines, and some curly and straight lines. Students add patterns and designs inside the lines. Have them brainstorm first.

Finally we start to color in the picture. I discourage 'scribble scrabble'. We use color pencils for this step. To keep children happy I set a few small pencil sharpeners on their tables so students can sharpen as needed over the 'trash bucket' that's always on their tables. Coloring usually takes two art classes.

Here are some first grade results!