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Showing posts with label organization. Show all posts
Showing posts with label organization. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
New Year's Clean Up
Or a better title: The new fire marshall will be visiting mid January. I am one of the lucky ones that my room was actually designed as an ART ROOM. I know a lot of teachers who make do with a regular classroom or a room designed as a science lab or dare I say it - no room at all.
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| from the door looking in |
I went in to school today to have some uninterrupted time to organize my storage room. I have been just collecting donations, getting in orders, throwing things in and closing the door real quick! Doing a good organization is not something you can do with a 15 minute break here or a half hour planning time there. It has to be an all out dump it out and put it back neatly. I think I got somewhere in between, something I won't be embarrassed to show to someone. There are also some gems I found that I need to come up with some good ideas on how to use.
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| in looking towards the door |
Here is a before pic - wish I got a better shot of the floor but I couldn't get back far enough!
I already know I am a hoarder and being an art teacher has made it worse. "oh, I could use that in such and such lesson"... But what I found in this clean up is that I have not thrown away a box that has come into my room since the school opened 3 years ago! I just love boxes in all sizes and shapes - they were filling up at least 3 large shelves. Now that I have more actual art supplies it was time to say goodbye to several boxes!
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| I started by getting some of the boxes out of the way and out into the classroom |
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| A whole useful shelf filled with empty boxes |
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| Some of the good ones put back for use "someday" Notice the little sample paint jars - great donation - I think I might 'steal' the little shelf in our adult bathroom and have some students artsyfy it!! |
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| I have 700 of these! Wish they were not divided. |
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| Lots of coffee filters - Want to do a Chihuly lesson with these |
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| cone water cups |
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| 200 of these plastic lined paper pillow cases - clinic miss ordered these. I am seeing some kind of watercolor, spray bottle mess with these! |
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| miracle sponges - stamping adinkra? ... stamping on the pillow cases!!! |
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| Magnet tape! |
And the finished results! It makes me breathe a little *sigh* of relief. ahhhh |
| WOW - there is a floor in there! HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!! |
Monday, September 27, 2010
A Carpet, Finally!
So in my mind having a carpet was going to solve all my group discussion problems and students would sit like angels in their own little circle ~ yeah right! So I finally got my long awaited carpet which my principal helped pay for (even better).
It doesn't solve the ants in the pants on a rainy day but it does help get students in quickly and they know where to sit. It also helps when dismissing them to their seats - I can say if you are on a red circle take your seats, and so on.
Excited about starting the next round of lessons and preparing the first one to get sent off to Original Works to start my fundraiser.
I can't believe it is almost report card time already!
Sunday, August 22, 2010
My totally awesome, really cool art room!
Work week is over and the kids will show up tomorrow morning weather we are ready or not! I spent all last week puttering around in my room working on 5 things at once and getting sidetracked with another as I went along. Of course add in an all county meeting here and a staff meeting there...
I want to say thanks to all my blogging friends who gave me some great ideas this summer. Please comment with a link if you see something I 'borrowed'!
I am REALLY lucky as this is my third year at my school which is only 3 years old. This wonderful space was built to be an art room from day one. I have lots of counter space, two sinks, a storage room and a kiln room all built in! One wall has three large bulletin boards.
This is the view as you walk in the door. Three boards, three windows, materials counter, shelving below labeled with each teacher's name in order of arrival. AV cart with LCD and Elmo camera.
Standing in the room facing my desk area. The large ART banner is made of felt. The mentor teacher I had for Middle School gave it to me <3.
The view from my desk. Color laser printer, drying racks, cutting board, sinks, cabinets, door to the storage room.
The front corner of my 4 paneled whiteboard. This is where all the 'business' is: magnets, mini globe and US map, class score (5-1) which gets reported to the classroom teacher, seat helper, daily schedule, new grading rubric.
overall view from the back - notice a project on every table!
Bulletin Boards
Here is my color theory board, I am debating on what to do with the top - a big COLOR sign or I was thinking of horizontal and vertical examples.
I usually fill with one artists' work and change each quarter. This way there are examples of the work I talk about that students can refer to anytime, they don't have to remember them from the power point.
This is in the back of the room and last year I never put anything on it (yikes!) Actually stuff got piled up too high. Now I can refer to these as I teach and students can see the vocab in one place.
Storage/Kiln Rooms
It is really clean when the Fire Marshall visits :-)
I haven't even gotten my beginning of the year order yet! I got a lot of donations of random stuff I am still working on organizing.
Love my attached kiln room - when students glaze I have them bring it to me and I can arrange it on the spot and turn it on at the end of the day.
Room & Materials Management
Each table has a color palette with seat numbers contact papered to the middle. This year I had to add a table to make 8 tables of 4. Our 4th grade classes this year have 29 and 30 students! So I have six color wheel tables and two neutrals, grey and black.
This is how I organize materials. I haven't committed to taping down the labels yet. I added the wire shelving this year (WalMart - made for organizing your dishes in the cabinet.) I was thinking of putting upper grade materials on the shelf (harder for the little ones to reach). For certain projects I like to keep them separated to keep the nicer materials in good shape!
I set this up different this year. When students are done sometimes I have them choose a book to read silently. I found the books ended up all messy - so this year I separated them out and put the younger books in the bin below the counter - so for Kinder, 1st they can dig in and return easily without rearranging all the others! On the counter they are separated as Artist Bios and How to Draw books so if they are free drawing they can go to the left and silent readers can pick from the right.
The room still feels so bare to me. There is one wall that is usually clear which I will fill with some art posters. I am thinking I may need a mural project to get the kids involved in adding some decor to the room. I usually do not display kids art in my room - I save it to go outside in the halls.
By the end of this week every child will have a portfolio on the shelf with their first marks made for the year. I am excited to see my old friends back as well as meet all our new ones! I am so lucky to be able to have contact with EVERY student ~ all 635 of them...
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Getting Close...
to school starting again. It is hard to believe this will be my third year at Greenville! I am starting to get the hang of this being off in the summers again. Last year I felt a bit unproductive. This year I made lists and I had this blog to keep me honest :-) At least it helped me to feel like I was getting somewhere and doing something. This week I will be staying close to home - been taking care of drs appointments, organizing files and just wrapping my head around another great year of teaching ART to K - 5th graders.
Experimenting with dinner - need to add a few more to my list, my boys are getting tired of steak, spaghetti and breaded chicken breasts. Here is the Rachael Ray recipe I made for dinner. No leftovers and my son said "This is the fanciest dinner you've ever made, mom." I'd call that a success.
Back to curriculum ~ I made a list of what I taught by grade and attached the standards to see what I might need to add. I also listed what I taught last year but did not get to this year (mostly because of so many SNOW DAYS!) I also have my inventory lists and what I need to order. I have kind of shot myself in the foot by being good at fundraising! My principal brags that I am 'self-supporting' so with all the budget cuts I will not be getting any money from the school this year. I have to use all the money I raised. I do very well with a magnet fundraiser where items arrive in time for the holidays - it also helps that I teach in a rather affluent part of the county. I also make a pretty good sum from Artsonia. Here was my procrastination drawing on my folder.
I am working on an inventory spreadsheet to make this easier in the future. To quickly see how much I used for the year and what I need to order for the next.
All my files are organized in boxes ready to go back to school and slip into the file cabinet. I still have a couple 'not sure' piles - slowly working through them. I am proud of myself for not stressing over having the folder tabs alternate and having everything color coded - that is a big step for me... letting things like that go. It is organized and it serves the purpose - I am not getting graded on it... am I? So here are the three sections:
The files I keep in my desk divided into the following categories: My Art Program, County Art Program, School/County Admin, Previous Planning Books
Then the student handouts which I recently laminated and hole punched. (see this blog entry) This is anything the students will use as a reference or complete.
Then I have all the lesson plan ideas I have been collecting. I organized those by subject:
Hopefully this will help someone either become more organized or give them permission to use *gasp* different colored folders and *gasp* handwritten titles. I know I need help! Maybe I should just set it all on fire (CED theme of the month!)!
Well this short little update turned into a novel as usual. Enjoy the last week of summer!
Friday, June 25, 2010
Lamination Station!
Well school is out and it is time to be productive! I plan on actually doing something this summer ~ not just taxi-ing my son around to his various baseball camps. As summer came to a close last year I felt very disappointed in my accomplishments, or lack there of. There are so many things I say - well if I had time I would do this or that, when in actuality I had time but I wasted it watching Dr. Phil or Oprah.
So for my first productive task - getting up and ready for teaching next year. This year I felt very unprepared and always rushing to get things done. I brought all my files from school home to organize. I have a binder where I keep the lessons that I have taught. Then I have piles of lesson ideas - things I want to teach or modify to teach, I have the usual school/HR/management type paperwork. And I have student handouts and resource materials. So I am setting up files to organize all this and get all the piles that collect throughout the year off my desk!
I started sorting all the lesson ideas into categories. Here it is in the early stages. I used port-its to start off so I could create folders that alternated tabs.
Then I have 2 other boxes that have student handouts and Admin/School/HR stuff in the other:
I have a large file cabinet at school which is very underutilized, basically because I keep everything in piles instead of files!
I decided I wanted to get all my class sets of handouts ready to laminate. At my school the laminator is like made out of gold and only one person holds the key to it. You have to submit your items and the gold key holder only laminates once a week. Well that doesn't really cut it with me being the control freak that I am. So I usually just let things go without laminating - or I don't have them ready in time to wait a week for them. We do however have a Teacher Resource Center in my county. It is a central office that has all kinds of equipment and materials to use or check out. It has a binding machine, LOTS of die cuts, paper cutters, and yes TWO laminators!! Where I can actually feed my own items in all by mybigself! It is just hard to get to it during the year, luckily it is open in the summer. You just call up and say turn on the laminator and by the time you get there it is heated up and ready to go!
I color coded all my class sets by table; laminated them, hole punched and connected them with a metal ring. I have several lessons where students use resource materials to help them along. For the 5th grade illuminated letters lesson I printed out info and several decorative fonts. For 4th grade Aztec Calendar symbol drawing and clay tile I give students a few copies of the Calendar and some Aztec design pages from a Dover clip art book. For the 1st grade aboriginal dot paintings I give students some animal pictures to draw from. 2nd grade Native American pinch pots student look at Dover clip art of Navajo, Hopi, and Pueblo designs. 3rd grade Instrument Collage students get illustrations of instruments to help them.
This should help a lot in that students can help keep things organized. I found that all the handouts were getting thrown into one pile and it would take me forever to hand them out to the tables for the next class. I can easily keep them in a file and pull them out when I need them - some get used for more than one lesson.
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