Grade 3 Monster Mama Portraits

This literacy engagement began with reading the story Monster Mama by Liz Rosenberg. We had fun studying the colorful illustrations and then reviewed the placement and proportion of facial features. We began with a light neutral oil pastel and sketched our portraits through the guided drawing process. In the next lesson I demonstrated the technique of blending oil pastels and showed students how to ensure that their facial features did not blend in to the face. During the last lesson students completed blending their portraits with color and took turns at the painting tables where they blew paint through straws for the hair and splattered the background for the finishing touches. My students worked hard, had a blast and are proud of their "monster portraits"!