Monday, August 30, 2010

Thanks Mr. E!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well my total obsession with my art ed blogs has just paid off. I check my blogs like email and anxiously await the next post... While I was vegitating in front of the tv watching the best movie of all time: GREASE, I was winning a contest by Mr. E. He is going to hand make a bulletin board for my art room ~ Whoo hoo!
Ok that big picture of me is really scary so I will have to return the favor.
I am going to decide and measure my empty wall tomorrow! Here are some samples of his awesome boards:
So which should I choose??

Saturday, August 28, 2010

Portfolios! ~ 4th and 5th Grade

For the first day of art class we go over all the procedures and rules, what I call the blah, blah and then create our portfolios for the year.
For 4th and 5th grade I give them a lot of freedom and tell them to write their name, first and last with their class code in the bottom right corner. Then they write their name in block or bubble letters across the whole portfolio. They decorate with construction paper crayons. I tell them to decorate in a way that tells me something about them.
5th grade used black paper and silver sharpies. 4th used colored paper and black sharpies.



This is the friend I wrote about last year. He is still fascinated
with Alice and Wonderland!

Loved how she used different pressure on the crayons inside of the letters!
Great designs and texture!

Monday, August 23, 2010

First Day of School!

Survived my first day of school today. Except for bus call taking 45 minutes all went well! The rest of the week should be smooth sailin' as I will do what I did today 4 more times. By the end of the week I will really be saying, "did I tell you that already?" or "Did I tell you about this yet?" Oh well! They will tell me the truth! I loved seeing all my old pals and meeting some new friends. The ones growing up and losing their baby faces and all of last year's 1st graders now have front teeth!

My baby boy is in FIFTH grade this year. He is a patrol! (most of the teacher's kids are since they get to school early anyway!) Here he is at his post. He also got to be the first one to start the school in the pledge over the PA this morning.

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!

Last year I purchased larger scissors for the older grades. I found some of them their hands were too big for the mini ones. In posting this picture I realize I need to add a basket for my 8th table!

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...

Friday, August 13, 2010

Finally... SchoolArts is here!

Back in July I received the digital version of my favorite Art Education magazine, SchoolArts. I have every issue back to September 2004 when I started in the Art Education program at George Mason.

I almost don't like getting it digitally because I read it all and then when it comes in the mail it isn't a big surprise! I finally got my print version today and it is extra special because I HAVE A LESSON IN IT!! AND a colleague of mine, a fellow GMU MAT alum, Sarah D. Brooks wrote the front cover article.

This was one of my goals, getting published and I have been keeping in the back of my mind what topic or lesson I want to submit an article about. Back in June Nancy Walkup posted on her blog that they needed ClipCards for the next few issues. So I jumped on it and sent her two different ones, both of which will be published! Pretty good start, I'd say!

So here is my ClipCard Elementary Lesson on Jim Dine:
Tune in next month for an Early Childhood lesson that simulates stained glass...