First grade students have been talking about emotion. We started this lesson by naming different emotions and how those feelings may show in our face. For example, when we are really happy we smile so big that our teeth show, our cheeks puff up, and our eyes squint. We compared this to how we looked when we are angry, sad, excited, and so on. We discovered that our facial features move around a bit and change in shape, depending on our emotion.
We then discussed how color may play into showing how we are feeling. The book My Many Colored Days helped in our discussion, as well as looking at several portraits by artists. Students were asked to choose four emotions, represented by four different colors which they were to draw themselves. They drew with oil pastel and painted the background with watercolor. Look at these drawings! How expressive!