The Royals of Elm Grove

Another art teacher in my district told me she did these with her kids and raved about how cute they were.  So, of course, I had to try them out.  These are my first graders self portraits as kings, queens, a princess, a prince or a knight.  These were the first round of finished pieces and they are adorable.  As always I have a few speedsters, (wish I could give speeding tickets in art) that I have to figure out what they were going to do.  I hate centers, so that isn't an option for me, ALL of them become law breaking speedsters and their artwork looks terrible if I make it available.  And I can't stand that no matter how many times I send them back to work and improve, they are right back up, asking if they can go to centers and they do this till they wear me down- I hate being defeated!!  OK... (squirrel) back on track.  So here is what I did, I had them write at least five sentences on themselves as a royal.  They could write a story, tell about their kingdom, what kinds of things they do for their people, anything about themselves they could imagine as a king/queen or so forth. They are quite entertaining!  I think I may make them all do it now.  

I told them to sign their name with their royal title.



I also read to them this great book by Leah Wilcox! Super cute and funny!