Women's History Month with kindergarteners

I visited Malayna's school yesterday to do a project with her class for Women's History Month. We talked a little about celebrating the accomplishments of women in March and when I asked if anyone knew what "accomplishment" meant, one little girl said, "something that you accomplish." Ha!

I told them about Frida Kahlo, and then read this book:

I purposely didn't read a line in the book that said she almost died, but forgot that Malayna can read… She raised her hand and said, "mommy, you left out the line about how she almost died!" Oops.

After the book, I showed them a few prints of Frida's self-portraits (courtesy of my friend Diana). We talked about how she used lots of colors and sometimes liked to include animals in her paintings. I told them that they were going to do a self-portrait with their favorite animal (thanks for the idea, Carole!), and to think about what shape their face is, what color hair they have, what color eyes, etc. We felt our noses to see what shape they are (and while they were working on their portraits the teacher noticed one little boy feeling his nose). I hung a few prints on the wall for reference while they were drawing.

Their excitement was so awesome to see. Every child in the class was anxious to draw.

{Click on the photo to see it larger.}