Artist~Teacher... tishalou

I just attended the VAEA 2013 Professional Development Conference in Falls Church. It was only about 45 minutes away but I was able to get my school to pay for the registration and a hotel for two nights. I roomed with 2 other art teachers from Fauquier and we always have a great time together as well as learn a lot from each other! Seven teachers from my county attended.

It is always great to catch up with the professors and fellow students from the MAT program at George Mason too! It is like a built in support systems to see them at my session as well as attend theirs.

I know embarrassingly, I have not posted here for a year, but frankly every time I tried to sign in I could not figure out how to edit my blog since everything on Google changed! This time I was determined to make it in!

I wanted to share my resources with the wonderful educators who attended my session!

First, there were a few blog posts from when I taught the electives class.

• Friday Electives ~ Off and Running
• Faerie Houses 

Then here is my Power Point Presentation - it was a bit large to email.


Please let me know if you have any questions about the information.

Our guidance councelor put together a great program to celebrate our diverse heritage. Each of the specialists teachers taught special lessons that week to tie everything together. Here is a little preview of what went on in the art room...
Here is the bulletin board I put together to show off my student's hard work.

Kindergarten traveled to Japan to design kimonos - we read Suki's Kimono by Chieri Uegaki.
1st grade made Australian Aboriginal Dot Paintings after reading Animal Dreaming by Paul Morin.
2nd grade went to China and created traditional brush paintings.
3rd grade made the Egyptian profiles as discussed in an earlier post.
4th grade made Day of the Dead skulls out of wire after watching this great video. It is actually a British Airways Ad but I love it - and the fact that it is in Spanish and they have to read the subtitles is a bonus!

I found this little gem from MaryMaking. It fit perfectly for a National Heritage Week we were having at school. So for each grade level I chose a different culture or country to base my lesson. 3rd grade went to Egypt.
I started by taking each student's photo in profile against my projector screen and printed them out in Black & White.

I showed this video - up until about 6:30 - which was almost a bit long for them but I like to show the part about the grid - and they love the beginning where the narrator gets distorted like the way Egyptians depicted the body.



Here are some of my favorites: We made them with chalk pastels and added our name in hieroglyphics too!



Link to the Artsonia Gallery...

I have been a bad blogger... not updating as often as I would like. So I am going to try to get some updates going. I have been implementing a lot of ideas I have pinned on Pinterest so I will start by describing a few.
Last year I saw these white umbrellas in the Oriental Trading catalog and thought those would be great for my Art Club to make a donate to our Holiday Auction. But I wasn't sure how the designing would go.
So this little photo from Pinterest got me started...

Here is where it came from: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jmhurt71/4498578774/in/faves-mycreativebuzz/

tie dye polka dots!

GES is our school - I like the popcorn, soda movie mask idea!

Nature and animal theme

this one had an animal, nature theme. They were inspired by my animal print - wild about art theme in my room! they put their names into a word search on the last panel.

Trying to get mentally ready to head back to school tomorrow. I had a great 5 day break and did a lot of crocheting and crafting inspired by my Pinterest boards (more on that later).
I was just cleaning off my camera and remembered that I took some shots of my room before I left on Tuesday - this is what I have to look forward to tomorrow...
My drying racks were full to the brim and overflowing onto the counters.

Kindergarten is working on Cardinals in the Snow.

4th Grade is printmaking with Collographs inspired by music.

1st Grade is finishing up their Aboriginal Dot Paintings. 2nd grade is working on Chinese Brush Painting.

I hope everyone enjoyed their Thanksgiving break with friends and family! Back to School tomorrow - 3 weeks and 2 days until winter break (but who is counting :-)