Cubist Faces, Rolling Dice

After Grade 3 completed their more traditional portrait of a sitting model, we had some fun with portraiture. They read the book Getting to Know the Worlds Greatest Artists: Picasso by Mike Venezia, in which they learned about Cubism and saw examples of Cubist portraits.

Next, we designed our own version of the game Roll-A-Picasso, in which the features of a Cubist face are randomly chosen by the roll of a dice.

First, each of my four tables was assigned a facial feature (face shape, eye, nose, and mouth). Next each student drew 2 Cubist features for their table.

As there are 4-5 children on each table, each child had a drawing included on the Roll-A-Picasso chart. The Table Monitor then chose from the remaining drawings to get the necessary six (as there are six sides to a dice).

Each table put their six drawings on the Roll-A-Picasso chart.

Lastly, each student took turns rolling the dice four times. The first roll determined which face shape to draw, the second roll determined the eye shape, etc etc. Then they used the chart to compose their Cubist--now quite Surreal!--portrait!

Some works in progress....

The kids absolutely loved it! They loved the action involved, the game element to rolling the dice, and the surprise element, too.

I loved the collaborative aspect to the creative process, the kids taking ownership of designing their own games, and learning a new technique to encourage creative thinking. 

This was my first time teaching this lesson and I think it's a great template for other lessons, especially with Lower Primary kids. Can't wait to use it again!