Artist~Teacher... tishalou

A little behind on this but still wanted to share. It made me chuckle when I read Jessica's back in June post on Art of Education called "Why I Don't Teach Kids in the Summer" and I had just agreed to do 4!

Since I started in the County I have taught our GT summer camp. See a post about that here. It is a four day camp which includes a field trip. It is for students who are gifted in art and have been recommended by their art teachers.

I also sought out another opportunity at a local store that offers kids birthday parties and art classes. I contacted the owner and she basically said - whatever, whenever I will market it!

So I agreed to 3 camps that were 3 hours a day M-F. The camps I offered were called Doodlemania, Dive Into Art and Passport to the World of Art. The majority of the attendees were my students but I also had some out of town kids visiting Grandma and students from other schools in the county. It was a lot of fun and I got to do some fun - more crafty than I would do int he classroom - no pressure lessons.

Here are some highlights:
DOODLEMANIA
We made paste paper and drug texture combs through it:

 We made an accordion book to hold our work:

 We made lots of Zentangles:

We even tie dyed a tshirt and then zentangled on it too!
DIVE INTO ART
We made self portraits with goggles on!
We used fun fishy foam stickers and made paint chip matchbook notepads:
(found on Pink and Green Mama)
 We made tunnel books using index cards:
We made fish using model magic:
 And surf boards out of poster board:
Several of these ideas came from Pink and Green Mama Ocean Fun Art Camp Booklet.

PASSPORT TO THE WORLD OF ART
Each day of camp we went to a different country!
Henna Hands:

Indian Elephants:

Chinese Dragon Puppets:

Chinese Panda Brush Paintings:
Ridgid Wrap masks - inspired by Day of Dead Skulls but they turned out more like Mardi Gras masks!
WOW! that was a lot for one post. Oh well I got it out of my system. Will I teach that much next summer - probably not but I did make some nice extra money for our vacation, got to meet some new kids, and teach in a nice small setting!

Fauquier County started school this past Monday. I wanted to share some pics of my new room set up. I am starting year four so I plan on mixing things up a bit this year. You can see how it was last year from this post.
I also borrowed the Wild About Art Theme from Phyl over at There's a Dragon in my Art Room.
Here is the sign outside my door:

How do you assign seats for the new year? Here is how I do it...

My tables are all different colors and each seat has a number. As the students enter my room on the first week of school I hand them a little 'ticket' as they enter. The color of the ticket is the table they go to - the number is the seat.
The trick is - know the colors that are right in front of you to give to your students that may need you more often for one reason or another. Also have the tickets marked with male or female - this way you can create a boy/girl seating arrangement that can limit visiting.
This set up also makes it seem random to the kids - so it doesn't look like you are separating or placing anyone - even if you are.
I usually look over my class list, determine how many tables this class needs and make sure students are distributed evenly. I try not to have any student sitting alone - and I try to keep the back tables clear for supplies - or for a student who may need to sit or work alone.
Then I will take roll (which I only do on the first day just to make sure I have a correct list, correct name pronunciation or nicknames). As I take roll I enter the names on a seating chart that I use all year - always available for me to learn names and for subs to call names.
I was thinking of getting away from using the palettes attached with contact paper on the table this year because:
1. I am getting tired of looking at them after using them for 3 years.
2. The students mindlessly pick them off - no matter how many times I tell them not to!
3. They get ratty looking so quickly - I usually repalce them each quarter.
I love the idea of hanging table IDs from the ceiling but I don't think our fire marshall will allow it!

How do you do it?