Pass the . . . 

by Maura Selenak
Harborview Elementary, Kindergarten

I learned a routine called Pass the Portrait at a recent inservice with Melanie Rick, an instructor from the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.  To play Pass the Portrait, students are seated in a circle, facing a partner.  Before beginning, students must show the place between them where they will be placing the piece of art (this is an important step because it helps avoid conflicts).  In the game, students are taught how to “read” a portrait by discussing things like facial expression, gesture, and focal point. The teacher places a printed portrait in the predesignated spot between each pair of students.  The students have one minute to discuss the picture before the teacher starts counting down aloud- “10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, pass….the….portrait….!”  The expectation is that students will wrap up their discussion by the time the teacher gets to 1, then will pass the portrait to the next pair by the time she finishes saying “pass the portrait”.  The teacher moves amongst the students during the discussions, pulling out ideas and writing them on the board to reference later. This routine quickly gets students engaged- there is art in their hands!- and discussing with one another.
I used Pass the Portrait to teach my kindergartners the routine and expectations for the game- they are seated, they are talking in quiet voices, they are expected to work with anyone in the class, they finish their conversation by the time I get to 1, and they pass the portrait clockwise.  After teaching them this routine, I realized the sky was the limit!
For example, we used the routine at the beginning of the Ray Troll art kit.  I printed out 15 images of Ray Troll Fish.  We began the lesson by looking at one piece of exemplar art on the board and identified colors, lines, patterns, and shapes.  We were then ready to play “Pass the Artwork”.  We used the exact same routine as Pass the Portrait, except students were looking at Ray Troll images, and they were picking out colors, lines, patterns, and shapes.  The discussions were rich, and when it came time for students to create their own artwork, they were inspired and had concrete ideas of what kinds of lines, shapes, colors, and patterns they could use.

In another instance, I used the Pass the Portrait routine at the beginning of the Rainbow Flower Garden Art Kit.  The kit comes with many colorful artificial flowers.  We used used exemplar art to identify flower parts before students played “Pass the Flower” with the artificial flowers.  The objective for their discussions during Pass the Flower was to identify flower parts (stem, leaves, flower) and describe the flower (it has 5 petals, it is colorful, it has one long green leaf, etc.)

I wanted to share these examples because I believe that this routine is highly appropriate for young children.  It is hands-on, students are using concrete visuals, they are developing their oral and receptive language skills through peer discussions, and it is fun!  
Once students understand the routine, you can mix and match the artwork/objects and the objectives of the discussions. Some ways that I can see using this are:

• Math discussions: looking for shapes in pictures, using math language to compare (longer, shorter, fewer, more, taller, heavier).
• Science; passing objects like shells, leaves, rocks, flowers, and images to get students observing and describing.
• Art: this was a fantastic way to teach art concepts and vocabulary and also get students looking at and analyzing art.
• Artful Thinking Routines: once the routines are modeled and taught, I could see using them during a “Pass the….” routine.