Best Last Week Ever!

This year's last week of school was the BEST one I can ever remember having. I decided to go through my file cabinets and pull out leftover copies from lessons done in the past. I set up the copies around the room and explained what they had been used for and then I let students in grades 2-5 choose what they wanted to do. With kindergarten and 1st, we did the story The Big Orange Splot and they made the house of their dreams. I usually leave this lesson for substitute teachers. Click here for more substitute ideas.

 

 

 

These were left over from a 9/11 poster that I had a few children work on for a memorial service at a local park. Click here for Blog Post 

 

 I love Mr. & Mrs. Potato Head and I did a paint project many years ago where students mixed brown and designed their own Potato Head. Read about it here.

 

 The Lion is our mascot and I love doing projects around him. Students copy famous art from postcards to fill in the shape of the lion. They also had the option of creating their own art.

 

Google has a annual contest called Doodle for Google. I never actually entered my students in it, but they seem to have a lot of fun playing and doodling with the Google logo. I just may need to consider entering them! The Lego Person is another lesson I leave for subs and is mentioned in the post with the Dream House.

 

I also mentioned to teachers that students could bring their electronics and fidget spinners. And I pulled out the iPads I have for the art room. I was able to purchase them through a grant. Read about it here. 

Turns out that I'm not the only art teacher that wants to make sure students are engaged during the last week of school check out the blog Managing the Art Classroom for a wonderful list of things to do the last week. And this one from Cassie Stephens.

Sorry I don't have more student work to show, but my goal was to keep students engaged and for me to start cleaning up the art room. They really did some cool stuff.......

Away another year down and my room is packed up and ready for the custodians to do their thing this summer.......

Thanks for reading and enjoy your time off!!!

Art Inspires Fashion

I have a fascination with postcards. Not just any postcards, they must be Art Postcards. The ones that you can purchase at an Art Museum. The ones that are photographs of the art at that museum or on loan to that museum. I have been collecting postcards for YEARS! However, I have finally, during the last few years, figured out how to use them with my students in art.

In Art Centers for Extended Learning-students choose an art postcard, then using a work sheet, they answer questions and draw a small copy of the art. This activity helps students to make connections to different artists and their styles.

In Curating with Postcards-students explore different art careers and the responsibilities of a curator in an art museum as they use postcards to create their own exhibit. AND apparently because I shared this activity last summer at a Summer Institute at Penn State-I'm gonna be quoted in a textbook!!

In Happy Trees-I reference the book If Picasso Had a Christmas Tree, where students matched Art Postcards to the art in the book. This was a great activity for students to learn to recognize the style of different artists.

Soooo last summer on a trip to New York City, while in The Costume Institute at The Met, I came across this beautiful gown. It was part of an exhibit titled China: Through the Looking Glass.

It made me think of this: The Great Wave Off Kanagawa by Katsushika Hokusai.

Which eventually made me remember this: by Cassie Stephens  click on her name to read her blog and be prepared to be blown away by her talent and dedication to the field of art.

AND a new lesson was Born? Discovered? Created? After messaging Cassie Stephens, who by the way is the art teacher's ROCK STAR of art teachers, I put together a few slides showing off the incredible fashions she creates to inspire her students as they learn from her about different artists.

featured in Nashville Arts Magazine, Nov 2014

 

There were so many different directions to go in with this lesson. However, I love incorporating our school mascot into our art when ever I can. Soooooooo after sharing several photos of Cassie and her wonderful fashions I showed students some postcards and directed them as to what they would be doing. They could cover the whole shape of the lion or put the lion in a body suit. I did this with 2nd and 3rd grades. Would be a good lesson to leave for a sub.
My samples-

  

I thought they should do some planning first and use the sheet with the four lions traced out.  I insisted 3 out of the 4 needed to be art inspired from the postcards and one could be their own art.

On the back they should take notes as to the title and artist's name. And when they decided which one they liked the best they could do an enlarged version. It's a fun activity and introduces students to different kinds of art and how art inspires more art!

 

 

 

Now I vaguely remember taking more photos. Ones with students working on this and of more finished art. I'm sorry, no clue what happened to them.

Moving along........ I feel terrible that my blogging has slowed down. I'm still on medical leave, the surgery was a SUCCESS and I will eventually mend AND NOT want to sleep ALL day because I left the house the day before for a few hours. It is what it is.

My original goal was to blog 3 times a week.
My realistic goal was to blog ONCE a week.
My medical leave goal is to blog when I'm not sleeping, and can think clearly for more then 30 minutes at a time. Hopefully things will get back to normal in time for summer vacation................

Thanks for reading!!!!

AOE Online Summer Conference

 Last Thursday, I spent the day in my nightgown, attending an art conference, online in my sewing/art room. I enjoyed the flexibility and the comfort in which I could do this. I even got an AWESOME swag box in the mail.

 

The conference was given by the Art of Education (AOE). If you have not heard of this incredible website you need to check it out.  Behind this brilliant idea is Jessica Balsley, an art teacher who realized that there JUST wasn't enough professional development available. Sooooo Jessica created some. What started out as a blog, turned into a site filled with lesson plans, articles, online classes AND the Summer Conference I attended last week. Positively BRILLIANT!

The AOE team, headed by Jessica has attended the NAEA (National Art Educators Association) conferences. This photo was taken of me with Jessica at NOLA (New Orleans, site of the 2015 NAEA conference) this past March.

At the same time they also hosted a gathering for blogging art teachers.  It was a SUPER opportunity to hobnob with the writers of several blogs that I follow. LOTS of FUN!

Not sure how I originally found out about The Art of Ed. I think I was on Google looking for some inspiration for an art lesson. I loved what I saw and signed up for info.

They have been doing two conferences a year and the first one I attended was in the winter of 2014. I felt the connection was spotty and since you receive an after pass, good for 6 months, to view the presentations I decided go back and do that. The 2014 Summer Conference I did at my leisure, with the after pass, as I was out of town at the time. After pass again for the 2015 Winter Conference because I was tied up with something.

Last Thursday I decided to do the 2015 Summer Conference at the time it was being broadcast. AND I'm glad I did! I don't know if it was my new laptop or the AOE upped their resolution but it played out beautifully. And I enjoyed it immensely!

 

When you initially look at the schedule you think, okay which presentations do I want to see? Then you say to yourself OH NO there are conflicts I WANT TO DO ALL OF THEM!! Well, the GOOD NEWS is that you can view EACH and EVERY ONE of them! The schedule is actually the order in which each presentation is given. They each run about 8-12 minutes and are focused and informative. You also have access to handouts and the opportunity to ask questions and chat with others during the broadcast. AWESOME, right?

It was very relevant to those of us that teach art, as they had presenters from elementary to high school. And you could learn something from everyone.

There were 19 presentations with an after pass that included 5 more. I plan to just highlight a few of them or I'd have a really long post!!!

One that I was really looking forward to was Nic Hahn's Artist Trading Cards or ATC.  Mrs. Hahn has the blog Mini Matisse and this link will take you to a short video on teaching students what QUALITY art is using  ATCs.  I loved it and couldn't wait to see her presentation.

Had fun meeting Mrs. Hahn at NOLA!

Another presentation: How to Teach Restoration at School by Miriam Pateemoster was really, really interesting. (Clicking on her name will bring you to her blog.) I believe teaching restoration is or will be part of our art curriculum. I was fascinated with how much info was presented. And how important restoration is.

There was a presentation on team work with Ian Sands and Melissa Purtee. The part I liked was how to decide on something as a team. Apparently each person is assigned energies or votes. So let's say you have 3 different suggestions to decide on and you get 5 votes. Suggestion 1 may get 2 of your votes, suggestion 2 may get none of your votes and suggestion 3 may get 3 of your votes. Everyone's votes get added up and suggestions get eliminated until you have something the whole team agrees with. Pretty clever!

Julie Davis from Dick Blick (click on their name to link to their videos) always demos a great project and the swag box always contains the goodies to make it. Also met Julie at NOLA. I was a busy girl!

I enjoyed Laura Lohman's presentation on using different strategies to make some crazy/good painted paper. Cassie Stephens presented on School Wide Collaborations-Those ideas just knocked my socks OFF! LOVED them!

There were presentations on classroom management and managing the clutter! Using a kiln and not blowing anything up, using air dry clay because there is NO kiln! (Imagine that?) Making a rubric, getting art out in the community and much, much MORE!! Mind blowing!!!

Cost for this conference???? Early Bird registration got you the conference for $89 and guaranteed you a swag box. After a certain date it was $109 and maybe swag boxes were left. Day of event $125 and no way was there any swag to be had.  There were around 1900 people signed up and 1500ish boxes sent out. And this box was filled with incredible stuff-best one yet!

SOOOO get on their mailing list, learn a bunch of great stuff by reading their articles and checking out their lesson plans AND be READY to sign up for their next conference!!!

Thanks for reading!!

Carousel of Bloggers

Elementary Carousel of Learning: Teacher Art Blogs- WOW! It was a blast!
From left to right is Laura Lohmann of Painted Paper, Phyllis Brown Levine of There's a Dragon in my Art Room, Cassie Stephens of What the Art Teacher Wore, Jen Dahl of Jen Dahl's Art Room and me, Sheryl Depp.

 The room was set up with tables, with a different blogger at each table. The way it worked was similar to speed dating. You would enter the room, choose a table to sit at, listen to a short presentation and then move on to the next table.

 

   

By the end of the session you had the opportunity to meet and learn something different from each of us. Since I was so busy talking, I didn't get to listen and learn from all the other bloggers in the room.

   

   

But I believe Phyllis spoke about navigating around the tabs of your blog. Cassie spoke about finding your passion and then writing about it. Jen got into the technology of setting it up and I went into my thought process on how I got started.

 

 

 

The event was overwhelmingly  successful and was attended by other established bloggers. I got to meet Nic Hahn from Mini Matisse. She has me linked on her blog AND as soon as I figure that out, I will be making a list of bloggers for you all to check out!

 

 

This wonderful event was coordinated and hosted by Nancy Walkup editor of School Arts Magazine.

AND later that same day...............

The Art of Education had a Blogger Meet Up! AMAZING!!

I am feeling incredibly inspired by all the wonderful people I met during the 2015 NAEA conference.

OH AND I ALSO GOT TO MEET THE "SELFIE" LADY!!!

 Last November, my blog was inspired by a video from The Art of Ed summer conference on Selfies.

What person has inspired you?

Now I'm gonna get some rest, so that I can get back into the real world and return to work tomorrow!!

Thanks for reading!!!