kindergarten face collages

Kindergartners can never have enough cutting practice. This activity gives them lots of that, and more, plus it is a great way to use up some construction paper scraps. For these face collages, I purposely took all the pink construction paper out of my scrap bin, because I wanted students to use wild colors that have nothing to do with real faces. I'm sure the one little girl who asked for pink thought I was just being ornery when I told her we weren't using any pink this time. All we needed was an assortment of colors of 9x12 construction paper for the background, 6x9 pieces for the faces, and a lot of construction paper scraps. I did provide tagboard ovals for students to trace for the head shape, but other than that they were on their own.

I gave students simple directions, emphasizing that they needed to choose two different colors for the face and background. I spread the construction paper scraps across the floor and invited them to take any colors they needed.

As students finished tracing their head shapes, I took pencils away so that they would have to "free cut" the shapes for their faces without drawing them first. Most students got right into it and started immediately cutting shapes. For those who insisted that they didn't know how to cut something, I had them look at my face while I traced the contour of the part they were trying to make and then asked them what shape they might use and to give it a try. If they were still hesitant, I would model cutting a shape for them, and then have them cut their own. For the most part, students were happy to have unorthodox shapes for their facial features.

As students finished their faces, we lined them up on the white board tray and I had them look at their own work and then look to see if they could see anyone else's that had something the same as theirs. Then we compared two at a time, looking for similarities. Most students found same colors or shapes, but an occasional student notice that "they both have wiggly hair" or another quality that was more sophisticated than color or shape.