I love when we have (read: make) a little more time for art during the week! I feel like my students really enjoy the opportunity to use their brains in a different way, and I relish in opportunities to encourage my students to apply their skills and preferences to artistic endeavors. Last week, we took time over two days to create snorkeling self-portraits, inspired by this blog that I found over a year ago. I originally taught this project as part of a daily activity for a summer camp I directed at a private school.

We used face templates that I found from this awesome website and fish templates that I found from a quick Google image search. I believe using templates/cut-outs is really helpful, especially when doing this project within a limited time frame and with younger students. My second graders still need lots of guidance when it comes to arts and crafting, and I always do projects with them or circulate the room the entire time they’re working, so that I can be there to assist with cutting and gluing where it’s needed.

We happened to be reading about jelly fish in our curriculum this week and we wrote about what life would be like if we were sea creatures. Though not identical to our curriculum studies, it was great to tie in our art lesson to the ideas we were discussing for our academic studies last week. I think it’s also nice to throw a little summer into the midst of winter whenever possible!

Find more photos of this project on my Pinterest page, in Simple Second Grade Art and Simple Summer Arts and Crafts.

Happy Holidays!