A Day with Frida

A country study of Mexico wouldn't be complete without the study of a few important Mexican artists.  We started our Mexican art study with Frida Kahlo and self-portraits.  I took a variety of lessons I found online and mixed them to make an easy and fun lesson.

Before we started Mister and Ladybug used Kool Aid to create a textured "canvas".  

While the Kool Aid was drying, we read Frida.  She story was simple for Mister and Ladybug to understand, without being scary, and the illustrations are beautiful.  

Then, we looked at six self portraits of Frida.  I didn't tell them who the woman was, but they saw connections between the illustrations in the book and the self-portraits.  Mister called out, "It's Frida!"  We studied the pictures and talked about the vibrant colors and a reason why there might be so many animals in her pictures.  I created my own self-portrait and I asked Mister and Ladybug to help me make a list of words to describe me.  

Our canvas was dry by now, so we made our own self-portraits.

I brought out the Learning Room mirror to help them with their portraits.

I used tape to make a border and some of her drawing was cut off by taking the tape off .  It's titled, "Halle and her dog Zoe."

Ladybug was so happy with her result that she asked me to put it on her door.