Political Portraits

Abe is a benevolent dictator

For our Art class, Sam taught us about political portraits. We talked about propaganda and realism/accuracy/flattery in portrait painting. Sam also showed us lots of examples of symbolism in various portraits of rulers and presidents through history. The kids had to put symbolism in their portraits too (I like the fleur-de-lis in Seb's picture; symbolizing, he says, "Royal Bananas.")

Government unit, Monarchy, Crowns

Lesson plan

"Types of Government" wall chart (we filled this in throughout the week)

On the Monarchy day, we made crowns. This was a great chance to get out every scrap of ribbon and spare button I've been saving for "some project." The kids loved making their crowns symbolic and representative of themselves.

We wore these again later when we talked about sovereignty, and to make the point that in our country, the PEOPLE are (supposed to be) sovereign.