This is a technical tutorial for creating beautiful silhouettes that can be the first part of a language arts project. It's a great beginning of the year activity to create classroom community and makes for a great parent gift. Students can use the Type tool in Photoshop, or the type on a path or area in Illustrator to add words (or even pictures) that describe themselves, poetry, or things that they think about. Silhouettes can also be used to teach sign language, or to create symbols to communicate an idea. Audio clips of the children talking could also be added behind the silhouettes to make a meaningful slideshow. This would also be a great collaborative exercise of having older children do the technical part of the project after having worked with younger children to take the pictures and brainstorm words or record audio.