Assessment: Kindergarten Self-Portraits

One of my goals this year was to document the way I assess my students' artwork. I try to avoid assessing artwork solely on project completion but strive to find creative ways to measure understanding. I thought I'd share my thought process behind a very simple portrait lesson I tried with Kindergarten this year. I use the Getty Museum lesson planning template because the

Learning Objective-----> Activity-------> Assessment

trajectory is a logical thought process to me. They have a great "Lesson Building by Grade" which I find very helpful which you can access by clicking here.

Below are a few of the big ideas that I used to teach my Kindergarteners the basics of portraiture.

1) Learning Objective: Students learn about the life and work of an artist and speculate about his or her artistic intention in a given work.

Activity: Through guided looking, students learn about the life and portraiture of Frida Kahlo by viewing her iconic "Portrait with Bonito." Students then examine "Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear" by Vincent Van Gogh and speculate about his artistic intention.

Assessment: Students can formulate a theory about why a single element or image is included in a work of art and support their theory either with information from the artist's biography, or information found in other works of art by the same artist.

2) Learning Objective: Students identify and categorize art into different genres and categories.

Activity: Students work in groups to sort a deck of art print cards into portrait and non-portrait categories.

Assessment: Students who can accurately sort their card piles demonstrate a thorough understanding of the portrait genre. Students who successfully sort less than half of the card deck need more practice.

Bird Masks

The weather outside has been delightful! Crocuses have been blooming and birds are singing their hearts out in disbelief! This unseasonably warm spring made it impossible for me to resist doing a bird lesson with my Kindergarten artists! The two day project started with a brief discussion of masks from other cultures such as African Yoruba masks, traditional Chinese theater masks, and South American Aztec warrior masks. We brainstormed different reasons why people may wear a mask. Most students related to the idea of masks as a means of disguise for Halloween festivities, but we also talked about se masks that are used for safety by doctors and sports players.

These masks we're made from half of a small paper dessert plate and a large wooden craft stick. The students decorated their masks form with tissue paper and feather. Here is one of my Kindergarten classes modeling their creations.