Check out my new A R T letters!

In preparing to move classrooms this year, I took down some wooden letters that I had on my door that spelled out ART. I have had these letters for 7 years or so, they were painted in primary colors with designs drawn on them. These letters have been moved from wall to door, from classroom to classroom. But this time, the letters broke when I pulled them down. I want to have some sign or something outside my room that lets everyone know that this specific room is the art room, especially since there are 2 art teachers at this school, and one of the rooms has been moved this year. During my last visit to Hobby Lobby, I found some chipboard letters that are pretty large, and thought that these may be suitable. I covered each letter with scrapbook paper and then embellished them with ribbon and scrapbooking stickers. I am very pleased with the outcome, and think that these will look great on the wall outside my door.

Mayor's Art Show

Every year in Nashville, the Frist Center is host to the Mayor's Art Show. Each school in Metro chooses 2 artworks from each grade level to represent the school, and the artwork is hung in the Frist Center. There are so many schools in Metro that they have to have 2 sessions of the show, and my school was in the first section. Since we have 2 art teachers at the school, I pick one artwork from each grade level, and the other art teacher does as well. Everything is matted in black and backed with foam core, labeled and hung up. Here is what Lakeview Design Center put in the show.

I also take this time to look at what other schools are doing, and "borrow ideas." I found some great ones that I will share with you soon.

Summer Camps...time to prepare!

So, even though school is out for MNPS students, I am preparing to teach a variety of summer art camps. A local museum and botanical garden, Cheekwood, is celebrating it's 50th anniversary in a big way. Working in conjunction with the Frist Center and the Nashville Symphony, a large Chihuly exhibition is being held at both Cheekwood and the Frist, while the Nashville Symphony performed Bluebeard's Castle using sets designed and created by Chihuly. I got to see the symphony, and it was AMAZING!!!!!!!!!! Chihuly is one of my favorite artists, and I, of course an so excited to use this opportunity in my summer camps. I am teaching 6 different camps at Cheekwood, which means that my students can have some hands "off" (after all, we can't touch the art) experience with Chihuly. I am also teaching at Art-al-Sol, a 2 week long summer art camp provided by MNPS. There are 2 sessions, each a week long for students 8-13 years old. Of course, I am planning Art-al-Sol around Chihuly, and found an amazing wealth of lessons online to incoporate in the camp. I found a couple of great lessons at http://www.dickblick.com/ including this one using dura-lar, hot water and Vitrea 160 paint. http://cdn.dickblick.com/lessonplans/classroom-chihuly/classroom-chihuly-chihuly.pdf


This one is so easy! I cut three organic shapes out of the dura-lar, one large and two small. Then, I bent and curled the plastic into very organic shapes, and dunked it into boiling water, which caused the plastic to retain the shape I had bent it into. After drying off the plastic, I painted it with the vitrea 160, a glass paint that can be baked onto glass ware for a permanent finish. With the dura-lar however, you cannot bake it, just let it dry. I can't wait until the kids try it!

Back to school!

Well, it's that time of year again, and school has started back up. I decided to keep the theme of jungle for my classroom, but I have included more lizards this year, as well as the monkeys from last year. Here are a few of my bulletin boards. The first one is my behavior board. I have assigned a number to each of the seats, and have a corresponding pocket on the board with four pieces of colored construction paper in the pockets. As a child chooses to misbehave, their "cards" are pulled, and there are consequences given. This board is right by the door, so as the classroom teachers arrive to pick up their students, they can easily see if a child misbehaved.

The next board is the one outside of my classroom. We have new teachers this year, and with two art teachers (one outside in a portable) I wanted to make sure that they could find my room.

I have quite a few bulletin boards in my classroom, but they are not in the most convenient areas of the room. One of the boards has to be covered up by the shelf that I use to hold the children's artwork, so I decided to "split" up the remaining board.

Now let's talk storage. I mentioned the shelf that I use for storing my students artwork. Storage is a huge issue for art teachers, and unless you are in a room designed for art, you need to get very creative. I was very lucky to have a kindergarten teacher who decided that she didn't need this piece of furniture anymore. I offered to give it a home. I have little labels with the teacher's names on them stapled to the sides of the shelves. The artwork can be stored flat (unless, as you can see, I let one of the little ones put the artwork in instead of me doing it)

I also have two little wooden shelves that hold plastic bins along one of my wall. I have not finished putting all of the art supplies out yet, but I like using these bins because then I can grab the whole bin to pass out supplies.

I also have a wooden shelf with the glue on it, and a set of drawers with things like brushes, beads, scissors, etc.The drawers are nice because they slide all the way out for distribution.

One of the coolest things ever!!!!!!

In buying supplies for Art-al-Sol, I found a glass fusing kiln that goes into the microwave. I ordered it and tried it out with my campers. It is AMAZING!!!!!! You design a glass piece, place it on kiln paper, and place it in the kiln. The whole kiln goes in the microwave for just a few minutes. The only drawback is that you have to wait for 30 minutes before you can take the glass out of the kiln and see it. I know...patience is a virtue, one that I usually have, but this time, it was very hard to wait. I found this kiln in an art supply catalogue, but I also found it at Hobby Lobby. It's a little pricey at about $119 at H.B., but with a 40% off coupon, it makes it more affordable. I have fired my kiln over 60 times, and it is still working great!

Art-al-Sol 2009

Each year Metro schools offers a summer art program called Art-al-Sol. I have taught this camp for the last three years. This summer, we used the theme of Art around the World. We had some great artwork this year, and I thought I would showcase some of it!

Getting buggy in the art room

My second graders finished their required curriculum early, so we decided that we wanted to paint. I decided to have them create a oil pastel resist. We started out by drawing with pencil a large bug of their choice (it could be imaginary) sitting on a flower. Then we outlined with black oil pastels. Next they added some other details with white oil pastel. Finally they painted with watercolors. Some of the classes used Prang watercolors, others used liquid watercolors (I like how bright the colors can be with the liquid watercolors, since they are concentrated)

Painting with elementary students

I love to paint with my elementary students, but I know that there are a lot of art teachers out there who have problems with paint. Paint is very messy, and I think that the more organized that you are, and the more you teach that organization to the students, the better the student's artwork will be, and the cleanup will be much easier as well. I thought that I would share my painting organization with anyone who need help with this.

I start by spending a few minutes with each class, teaching them (or reminding if it is an older class) about the way we do and do not use the brush. I teach them the vocabulary of the brush parts (bristles, ferrule, handle) and remind them that we only paint with the end of the bristles and therefore, I should not see paint on the ferrule, or on the handle. I also talk to them about not "scrubbing" with their brush, so the brush should never look sloppy. (This is a great time to show the video "Young Sloppy Brush" that is found on http://www.teachertube.com/. After this, I pass out the paper and the paints.





For tempera paint, I like to use the "poster paint" containers. You can buy the empty containers from most art supply stores. They hold 6 colors. I use one for the primary and secondaries, and another for the other colors. I like this method of passing out paint because I feel like we waste less paint this way. There are lids that close, and if you need to clean out one color, you can just open that one well, and clean it out. Also, at the end of class, I do not have 20 different palettes to clean laying in the sink. We just put the lids on and go on our way. The containers last a long time, the ones in the pictures are a couple of years old.

I also use "cafeteria" style trays. I place the square brush basins (a must for the classroom in my opinion) in the middle of the tray, and then 2 of the paint containers, on opposite sides of the basin. Next, I place paper towels and brushes (a couple per student.) The great thing about this method of organization is that since the bowls are stable, I am able to stack up 4-5 of the trays on the counter. I can get them ready for the next day. It also makes it much easier to pass out supplies, I can pass everything out in one trip (well, other than their paper), and since the students are not out of their seats, there is less chance of spilling paint or water.

Because I take the time to talk about how to use the brush and paint correctly, and because there is the tray underneath the supplies, there is very little drips and splatters on the table, but if there is, the students have a paper towel in order to clean up the mess right away. I also do not let the students tap their brush on the brush basin to get rid of extra water from their brush. I make them wipe the brush on the side of the bowl.

I use the same set-up for watercolor painting as well.

With kindergartners, I do not let them use watercolors right away. I like to let them use tempera cakes first. I do this because it is the same concept for both types of paint in that they have cakes of color that they have to add water to. The tempera cakes are larger and harder than the watercolor, so the students can learn not to "dig" their brush into the paint, but to add more water. I find that if I have the kindergartners paint with the tempera cakes a couple of times, my watercolors last a lot longer when I finally let the students use them.

Cleanup is very easy, since everything is on the trays. The students place the brushes on the trays, and as I am picking up the trays from their tables, the students are putting their papers on the drying rack. I simply stack the trays up, and clean the supplies when I have a few moments.

Another Great Website!!!

Another website I have found is Art Attacks, http://www.hitentertainment.com/artattacK/ a British tv show where the host Neil, shows children different art and craft projects that they can do with items around the house. There is one section, called art attacks, where it lists all of the projects that he does, and you can click on them for step by step instructions and pictures. Just so you know, because it is a British show, they use British sayings, such as; use a PVA glue, which is the same as Elmers glue, kitchen and loo rolls are paper towels and toilet paper. I have found some great 3-D projects on this website.