When the wind changed.

"Don't make that face, the wind might change."  I remember my mother telling me this when I was little.  I would look around to see if the wind was about and then check the mirror just to make sure it hadn't changed my face.  It's funny the stories we remember from our childhood.

As a teacher, the wind means something else to me now.  Usually craziness.  While team teaching a class of 30 students last term, we decided to have a little fun.  Bring back some of the old fashion teaching and focused on 'faces' for the day.  This decision was not made until ten minutes to 9 o'clock.  With two of us on the job, we each took a different activity and ran around getting ourselves ready for a busy day.

It was such a simple idea.  An outline of a face with it divided into three parts.  The top section was for the hair and eye brows.  The middle section for the eyes, nose and ears and the bottom section for the mouth, beard and neck.
We walked the students through the activity without telling them about how the finished product was going to look.  When each of the students finished their picture I collated it into this 'faces' book.

The students' loved seeing their faces' mixed up with someone elses.  The detail that some of the students put into their pictures was amazing.

This session was simple but very effective.  You could easily make it into a art lesson, a writing session or a follow up activity to the book!

Mel