T'was the Week Before Halloween

This past week I didn't really want to start anything new, AND I wanted to get all my classes aligned. You know- all of the same grade levels working on ALL the same lessons. AND I knew my students would want to have a little fun for Halloween. (They should have fun every week except.... NOW we have EOC's.)   Below you will see what my students were up to last week.

My 4th and 5th graders learned how to make pop-up cards! A really BIG SHOUT OUT to Matthew Reinhart, (Google him) a paper engineer and author of MANY incredible Pop-Up books. I was extremely fortunate to take a workshop with him at my state conference.

Basic directions for this card are as follows. Fold paper in half, like a book. On the folded edge or crease draw 2 lines as shown in the first photo. Cut the lines.

 

 Then fold the cut section up, flip over and fold again, you are intentionally breaking the fibers on the paper. Then open the card and push the cut section through to the inside to create the pop-up.

   

Now because I really wanted this to take only one session I used this amazing gizmo in the teacher's workroom to have pre-cut shapes available for my students to use. They used double stick tape to attach their shape to the pop-up and used another paper larger than the first sheet for the outside of their card, which they also attached with the double stick tape.

And just look at how creative they were!

   

Some students chose to make their own shape for inside their card.

 

I knew this was a very successful lesson, however the real joy I got from this was when a student brought me in one that he made, on his own, at home.  Oh YEAH!

My 3rd graders are all working on a positive/negative value painting-which I will share in a future post.

My 2nd graders did pumpkin weaving. Really quick and simple. They traced a pumpkin shape, folded it in the middle (I pointed out to them that it was NOT symmetrical as one side of the pumpkin was higher than the other.) After folding the paper, they drew lines as shown in the second photo. They cut on those lines and then they were ready to weave.

    

Kindergarten and first graders had the opportunity to do bats, inspired by the book Stellaluna. Turns out that book is part of the first grade reading series so I gave students a choice.

Since Halloween and costumes were on everyone's mind, I had students draw costumes on their bats.

 

 

I made bat tracers that I cut in half to be able to teach my students a little about symmetry and following directions. 1-Fold paper in half.  2-Place the straight edge on the fold (line of symmetry). 3-Trace around the outside of the body with a pencil (DON'T trace the straight edge). 4-Cut out, open and decorate.  I do caution students to let me check their papers before cutting. Overall it went well.

Of course on Friday we had a storybook parade and here's my costume. Turns out I had a few crayons that quit or fell out of my box. I had NO idea what the kindergarten team had planned!
(By the way-I made my crown using crayon picks from cupcakes that my daughter saved me. I hot glued them to a plastic headband after breaking off the pointy part.) Thinking of wearing the crown on a daily basis-just call me the Queen of Crayons or Miss Crayon........ I'm thinking I had too much sugar.........

 

From what I have seen on Facebook this past week there have been many wonderful costumes used by teachers to inspire and have fun with their students. Way to go! I know I costumed up to see all my student's happy faces!!

With so many wonderful blogs out there-THANKS for reading mine!

My State Conference 2015

 I just returned from Naples where my state art educators conference was held. IT WAS A BLAST!! It absolutely amazed me, the effort put forth by all involved parties. The FAEA board members and their committees, the presenters (of which I was one) AND all the vendors that let us loot them, I mean gave us free samples.

I went to so many marvelous workshops, my head is about to explode! Thinking of ditching all my lesson plans for next week and just sharing what I learned!!

Okay I presented first thing Thursday morning and again on Friday afternoon. More details to follow on that as I am exhausted......  However, strongly feeling the urge to highlight what I learned!

After my workshop AND in the very same room was this awesome workshop titled Clay Critters which was presented by a speech pathologist by the name of Suz. She uses simple rhymes to help students remember the steps to take to complete a clay critter.

 

Really happy one was a lion, because that's my school's mascot! Mine is on the left, the other is one of Suz's samples.

I then attended a workshop titled Foil Action Figures led by Robert. He really makes his students think about what their figure is doing and has them place the figure in a scene appropriate to the action.

 

And much later that same day was workshop number 4....... ( remember the one I presented and the three I attended).

 

Textured Dragons and Castles presented by Chantel. That was really fun and I have many of the supplies needed to do this really great lesson. Pretty exhausted by the end of the first day!
Loved each and every presentation!

On Friday I presented on blogging and attended a workshop titled FAN-Tastic Mini Folding Fans with Chinese Brush Watercolor Markers presented by Debra and Melissa.  I was so tired I forgot to take lots of photos. So here's what I was working on.

We also had our division meeting AND I played in the vendors hall. Picture a really big room set up with dozens of tables, some vendors had "make it and take its," and many tables were loaded with a ton of free samples!! OH YEAH!!! A BIG THANK YOU TO Blick, Sax, Sargent Art, Pacon, Faber-Castell and so many more! I can't imagine what it takes to put all of that together and travel from state to state with all that stuff.

Above are ONLY some of the goodies I got to take home!

Saturday I attended a presentation by Cindy Walker, from Davis Publications. I have attended her presentations in the past and just LOVE her! It was titled Photography-Through the Lens-A View to the World and now I really, really want to teach photography!

Later that same day was a Hands-On Presentation by Matthew Reinhart. OMG! He is an amazing pop-up book artist! Seriously AMAZING! GOOGLE him! And a really nice guy!

 

 Above are some of the sample things I learned to do. Below is the balcony of the hotel I stayed in where I ate breakfast and relaxed at the end of my VERY full days!

 And all of the days were made that much better by having Erika as my roommate! We met at a 2014 summer workshop and get along great!

Thanks for reading and I promise to go into more detail soon! Drop me a comment about your state's conference!