Mice Portraits, 1st Grade

Part of my job is to work with the classroom teachers to incorporate art into the curriculum. Last week, the first grade teachers asked me to create an art lesson based on the books by Kevin Henkes. If you have never read a Kevin Henkes book, you should. They are really cute and always have a great moral. Most of his books feature mice as the main character. I based this lesson off of his book Chrysanthemum. This story is about a mouse named Chrysanthemum who doesn't like her name because the other mice make fun of her. By the end of the story, she learns to be proud of who she is.For this lesson, I had each student illustrate themselves as if they were a mouse. I asked them to try to make this mouse look like them. For instance, they could add glasses or hair that look similar to themselves. I did walk the students through drawing the mouse's head, but the details were up to them. After this, we glued our mouse onto construction paper. Lastly, I asked students to write their name, and draw things that describe themselves around the edges. I think these turned out adorable.