Character Strengths Mural

Lesson Background:

Our school has been using the positive education enhanced curriculum to help teach our students about character strengths.  A colleague stumbled across this beautiful poster from Big Life Journal: https://biglifejournal.com/products/confidence-lion-poster-kids-hardcopy and I thought it would make a beautiful mural.  My Year 1 class and I worked together showing character strengths of teamwork, zest, persistence and creativity to create this beautiful mural for the school!

Lesson Materials:

acrylic paint

paintbrushes

lead pencil

timber board

Lesson steps:

1.  I began by drawing the lion.

2.  The children then all came and helped paint a different part of the mane each.  After putting in a base colour we added flecks of other colours including gold (exciting!)

3.  The children painted the base colour of the lion's face and background.

4.  I added in some shadows and finer detail on the lion's face.

5.  I drew in some leaf outlines in the background using dark green paint, and the children coloured them in with different shades of green paint and then added details.

6.  The children decided they wanted to make a green border for the mural so they went rogue and added one in (haha!)

7.  Once the mural was complete, I pencilled in and then painted on the names of the 24 character strengths we have been learning about in class, using a white undercoat and then black over the top.