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Ms. Catherine Melendez's Classroom Edit display name

  • Brooklyn International High School
  • Brooklyn, NY
  • More than half of students from low‑income households Data about students' economic need comes from the National Center for Education Statistics, via our partners at MDR Education. Learn more

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I've used these mirrors in the past for many different projects. My two favorites are self-portraits with my 4th graders, and Imagination Superpower with kindergarten. What's most important to me with the self-portrait project is giving students the tools to represent themselves in their art - their skin color, hair texture, the unique qualities that make them, them. Learning to create a self-portrait involves many steps and skills to improve a child's artistic abilities. We start with learning about the proportions of a face, how to use basic lines and shapes to draw facial features, how to use dry-brush techniques to make different hair textures, and how each face and the features it contains are unique. Students are encouraged to observe their own features, head shapes, skin tones and study how they are uniquely crafted. This projects usually lasts several weeks, and students beam with pride over the final products. For younger grades, I use the mirrors and "tinker trays" to teach about what imagination is. Tinker trays are filled with found materials: small rocks, wood pieces, leaves, yarn, buttons, etc. I start the lesson by reading Not-A-Box by Antionette Portis. This book is about a cartoon pig who uses his imagination to transform an ordinary box into many different extraordinary things. I tell the students that they each possess the same special superpower that the pig has. They too can transform ordinary objects into something fantastical, using their imagination. I go on to explain that the art room is where we practice this imaginative superpower to make it stronger. Then using the tinker trays and the mirrors as their "canvas" they begin to play and explore whatever their imaginations provoke them to create. I'm always blown away with their ability to speak on the elaborate fantasy worlds they've created.

About my class

I've used these mirrors in the past for many different projects. My two favorites are self-portraits with my 4th graders, and Imagination Superpower with kindergarten. What's most important to me with the self-portrait project is giving students the tools to represent themselves in their art - their skin color, hair texture, the unique qualities that make them, them. Learning to create a self-portrait involves many steps and skills to improve a child's artistic abilities. We start with learning about the proportions of a face, how to use basic lines and shapes to draw facial features, how to use dry-brush techniques to make different hair textures, and how each face and the features it contains are unique. Students are encouraged to observe their own features, head shapes, skin tones and study how they are uniquely crafted. This projects usually lasts several weeks, and students beam with pride over the final products. For younger grades, I use the mirrors and "tinker trays" to teach about what imagination is. Tinker trays are filled with found materials: small rocks, wood pieces, leaves, yarn, buttons, etc. I start the lesson by reading Not-A-Box by Antionette Portis. This book is about a cartoon pig who uses his imagination to transform an ordinary box into many different extraordinary things. I tell the students that they each possess the same special superpower that the pig has. They too can transform ordinary objects into something fantastical, using their imagination. I go on to explain that the art room is where we practice this imaginative superpower to make it stronger. Then using the tinker trays and the mirrors as their "canvas" they begin to play and explore whatever their imaginations provoke them to create. I'm always blown away with their ability to speak on the elaborate fantasy worlds they've created.

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About my class

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