Back to School 2016 - Art Room Tour

Happy "back to school" time! Here's a quick photo tour of my Art Room and you'll find some info in the captions.

Enjoy!

We've got a "Road Trip" theme this year - riding the road to success with a little Disney love!

Thanks to the Dollar Spot at Target, I have a new vinyl cling for my wall, a new ROYGBIV'd poster and new marker buckets!

I'm trying a "Behavior Notebook" this year to keep better documentation about student behaviors. Thanks Pinterest!

Besides getting my classroom ready for the new school year, I also have the "honor" of decorating all the bulletin boards for Open House. Here are some of the cute ones. And I do love me some thematic fonts!

This one is my favorite - it's is our PBIS bulletin board that helps track how many Paw Prints our students earn for an end-of-the-year, all-school party. I love the watercolor "road" over the real map!

And today marked an exciting day - I finally gave my last "first day of school" speech! I give that same "these are the rules, here are the jobs, how you get points, blahblahblah" speech 20 times at the beginning of every new school year! I've been making Prezis to make it more engaging for a few years now - check them out and give it a try.

Enjoy the quick tour and have a great September!

~Amy

5 Tips to Get Started WEAVING

Weaving is, by far, one of my most favorite lessons of the year! Once the kids get the rhythm of it, they love it too!

Here are my top 5 tips to try weaving for your next lesson:

1. Invest in good quality cardboard looms with wide-notches.

Kids can get frustrated if the process seems too tricky or takes too long to master. Good quality looms make a world of difference in their frustration level. I often overhear, "This is easier than it looks." when I use the "good" looms. I've had some of my looms for over 10 years, and they still look and work great!


2. Teach students the correct vocabulary from the beginning: loom, warp, weft, weaving.

www.weaverandloom.com

Having them learn and apply art vocabulary is a great confidence booster in the Art Room. And its always fun when they know words that their parents don't!







3. Pre-cut your strings.

I have small plastic boxes filled with pre-cut and pre-sorted strings. This makes the process of picking out new strings so much faster, so they can get back to their weaving, as quickly as possible.


4. Have them check their weavings with you on a regular basis.

On the first day of weaving, they can choose 4 strings. When they are done with those strings, they have to visit me at a designated table and we have to check for "oops strings" - those strings that wanted to go over or under, but...OOPS...they went the wrong way!
On day two, we up the number to 6 and they are THRILLED! On day three, they can weave 8 strings before they visit me, but if they see one of those "oops strings" before they visit me, they can try to fix it themselves. And let me tell you, they are so proud when they figure out where a mistake is before I do! :-)


5. Make a few weavings yourself to understand the process and to have examples of many pattern possibilities.

In the beginning, we talk a lot about two-color patterns, like red-blue-red-blue. But as they weave more, they get ambitious. Maybe a three-color pattern, like red-white-blue-red-white-blue or red-red-red-white-white-white-blue-blue-blue, or maybe a six color pattern like the color wheel, or even a pattern that repeats with ANOTHER pattern! Their ideas are endless, but if you have some examples already made, you can easily show them what a pattern may look like ahead of time.

My 2nd graders are excellent weavers and you can see all their pieces in our Artsonia gallery.

And in the words of Journey, "Don't Stop Be-weave-ing"!
~Amy

Things that bring me JOY

Spam makes me sad. 

I get an email saying that I have a new comment on my itty bitty blog and I get so excited to "talk" to someone about this art world that I love. And then...it's just spam...just a computer generated, nonsensical, email that means nothing. UGH - like a fork to the eye, people!
So, the spam has taken the wind out of my sails with this blogging thing and since I am not one to dwell on the negative...I am going to celebrate things during my day that bring me joy and put a smile on my face! Here we go!

This is a goofy little invention that works SO well! It's a piece of balsa wood with stick pins in it. When the 6th graders are done applying the resist to their silk paintings, they take the tops of the bottles and put them on the pins. No more clogged tops! WooHoo!

Having my paint in ROYGBIV order is nothing new, but having the tape stripes underneath each color has really helped the kids put things back where they belong. And if they clean up, then I don't have to!

This doesn't seem like a very interesting bulletin board, but it is our Art Show Preview. We've got a sports theme this year and I think we'll have a pretty diverse show. We've got spectators, equipment, team logos, athletes, etc... along with all kind of skills and media.  I'm excited to finally get the art show out of my head and into the hands of my students.

And this is the back of my new favorite shirt - and this says it all! So, spam or no spam, I know why I teach art and why I love it!

Art Room Reveal

Welcome to my Art Room for 2015-2016! Be warned - oodles of pictures in this post! Enjoy!

This is my SMARTBoard, which I couldn't live without anymore!

These are my new clean-up signs. When I say "It's clean up time" - they should follow the Clean Up 5 sign and then the Table Job sign. The less I have to talk during clean up, the better! I think the kids would agree!  :-)  

Does the sign on the left seem to familiar? That's because I totally loved what Alecia at Art of Ed wrote about HERE and I totally stole it!  Above the signs are our school's PBIS rules: be respectful, responsible, safe and then I added "be creative."

Below the clean-up signs, I made a new "I Can" display for our learning targets. We'll see how this goes this year. I've never been very consistent about posting them on a regular basis. And I added the Mona Lisa/Marzano chart on the right.

Next to the clean-up signs is our Artist of the Week board. This year, we're going on a trip around the world visiting 26 different countries and learning about different types of cultures and their art. VERY excited to share this with my students and we'll add a "postcard" from each location as we visit throughout the year. Go check out Art Curator for Kids to see her ebook that inspired this presentation.

My mascot, ART, from Monsters University

This mega-cabinet was donated a few years back and it is A-MAZ-ING!!!! Each drawer holds all of my 2-D samples for each grade. (I think I need some color in this corner now that I saw this picture! Add it to the To-Do List!)

This is inside one of the drawers. I've got all my samples, organized by project name and grade level. I don't know how I stored all of this craziness before this cabinet!

This is a large wall above their Class Crates. I used a stack of scrapbook papers to create the large visual full of sports imagery and then, threw in some Monsters University/teamwork posters for a bit of Disneyness on this side of the room.

Moving around the room, this is my sink area. I love that I have two sinks and I try to keep the chaos to a minimum by having the kids wash palettes at one sink and paintbrushes in the other. Thanks to Pinterest and the Teacher's Palette website, THIS picture has gotten a lot of attention over the years. It's pretty old now because we had a full renovation since this picture was taken, but I still use the footprints. It really helps the kids not to bunch up by the sinks.

This is where I hand out paint over by the sink area. And its all RoyGBiv'd of course!

These are my Point Charts that go with our sports theme and I was a golfer for a long time, so the fabric covering my kiln room door is a golf fabric this year. It's fun tying in my other passions into my Art Room!

Continuing back around the room, this is a cabinet from IKEA that contains so many things! On the top, you'll find my seating charts and my document camera along with a work space for doc camera demos on the SMARTBoard. On the left side, I have an art library full of fun and inspirational books to look at if a student gets finished early. Then, the four black bins are for common every day supplies: tape, staplers, Sharpies of every shape and size, pencil sharpeners, and free drawing paper.

A new addition to my room this year is this desk area, behind my regular desk. I'm lucky enough to have a student teacher this year and wanted her to have her own space. Being a cooperating teacher brings back so many memories of my own student teaching experiences! And it's really an interesting process to not only TEACH art but to explain to someone else WHAT I'm doing it and the WHYs of it all. 

The first project of the year for all grade levels is a celebration of International Dot Day - stay tuned for the next post showing our all-school mural!

~Amy

Art Room Tour 2014-2015

I am very grateful for my Art Room. It is very spacious and I've spent a lot of time making it "my own." Some things are exactly the same as they were 17 (!) years ago and some things are different every single year! Please enjoy a tour of my home-away-from-home and leave your comments below!

This is my giant bulletin board that greets my students when they enter the Art Room. We have a SUPERHERO theme this year and I'm a big Disney fanatic, so I had to go with The Incredibles!" The green bins are for each grade level's supplies and samples. And the big table is for demonstrations, extra supplies, and it hides the garbage cans, recycling bucket and bins of my favorite markers. That left the front of the table area for a cute bookcase and display area!

This is a picture of my desk...when it's clean! It won't stay that way for long so I figured I better snap a picture before it's too late! The wooden boxes are from IKEA and I've had them for years! They hold all the extra handouts and paperwork for each grade level.

This gigantic paintbrush and paint splatter stickers are the highlights of The Paint Zone.

Point charts are a heavily debated issue in education, but I find that they work really well for my program. The kids are motivated to fill the rows, fill the entire chart and to compete against other classes. And they work really, really hard for just a small piece of candy or a new pencil. 

And I love the little orange sign below the Point Charts! At the end of each class, I noticed that I was calling up the same quiet tables first. To give everyone equal opportunities to line up first, I started rotating table numbers. So, this week, Table 1 lines up first, then 2, 3, 4, etc...  Next week, 2 will be first, then 3, 4, 5...and 1 will be last. The following week, we'll start with 3...and so on. This system is nice because when students know what comes next, there are less classroom management issues. Woohoo!

And the little hanging signs on the yellow sign are for "extra credit jobs" for the 4th, 5th and 6th graders. They include all the jobs I don't like doing but the kids do, like folding the smocks, emptying the pencil sharpeners or washing palettes. What they won't do for one little, extra point!?

And this is my Noise Chart - all superhero-themed, of course! This is another classroom management lifesaver. Each class starts on "Ready to Learn" and can move up the chart by working quietly or can sink to the bottom by being loud or disrespectful. It is a full-class system because I'm not a big fan of calling out or punishing individual students in front of the entire class. And again, this system seems to motivate students to work together for the greater good - getting more points which leads to more rewards. 

And this is my classroom mascot, Art from Monsters University, one of my favorite movies. He has absolutely no educational value but he's adorable, so he stays!!

Here's to the beginning of another great year of teaching and learning!

~Amy

Confessions from the end...

I take great pride in my organizational skills. With that said though, I feel I must confess to how my Art Room looks at the END of the school year. It's not pretty. It's not organized. It's full of dustbunnies, piles of scrap paper, bins and broken pencil nubs, and more summer birthday treats than I could ever eat!

But it's not all bad...  It's also full of memories; memories of giggling kids, oodles of hugs and high fives, some tears, hundreds of colorful projects, some great "light bulb moments", and a lot of learning about art, artists, color, vocab, etc!!! This marks the end of Year #16 for me and I'm already looking forward to next year!

~Amy

Art Show EXTRAS

Besides the +400 pieces of art on display from every one of my students, I always plan some fun activities for our families.

Here are the little extras that make the night extra special!

Welcome Table with programs 

 I use the Art Show as an opportunity to showcase my students' work but also my curriculum. Its important for families to see the learning targets, vocabulary and art history integrated into their child's art education. The program is handed out to all families and explains all the projects, highlights the night's activities, and thanks all the staff for their help.

Photo Booth

I found these adorable photo booth props on Etsy from UponATimeDesigns. I printed them onto cardstock and used wooden dowels for handles. They turned out super cute!

Snack Stations

For a few snacks during the Art Show, we had "chicken feed" which was really Chex Mix and then we had "spider eggs" to nibble on too. Those were green and yellow Jelly Belly jelly beans! Cute, goes with our theme, and tasty! Woo hoo!

Technology Table

We have a few carts of Chromebooks in our school, so for the show, we had four computers available for students to see their Artsonia gallery and check out their art online.

Tattoos

I found some farm-themed temporary tattoos from Oriental Trading and thought they'd make a fun station. And I saw a lot of kids with pigs and chickens and cows the following day at school so I knew who came to the show!

The evening of the show, we also had PTO-sponsored Candy Bingo as a fundraiser, so it was a packed evening of family fun. As much as I love planning the art projects for the show, I also really enjoy planning a night of thematic snacks and activities and special extras to make it a night to remember.

What else could I add to the show? If you have some ideas, please leave them in the comments!

~Amy

BEFORE the Art Show!

This year, our school participated in the "One School, One Book" program and our entire school read Charlotte's Web. So, for the annual Art Show, each grade level's project was inspired by a quote from the book. Now that all the projects are winding down, I thought I'd share with you what it looks like BEFORE the show!

Piles, piles and more piles

All my students' names are in an Excel document so I just set up a mail merge and run "Business Cards" through the printer for easy name tags. As each class finishes a project, I photograph them for Artsonia and staple the name tag in the corner. As everything gets finalized, they go in great big piles (which I still believe is a perfectly fine organizational strategy!)

Rolls, rolls and more rolls of paper

Our building has a good-sized length of cork strip outside every classroom for displays. I went around one year and measured them all (BIG JOB...but I only had to do it once! WHEW!). Now, I have a nice map that tells me that Room 104 has 23', Room 106 has 21' and Room 312 has 14'. Granted, it would be a whole lot easier if everyone had the same length, but...

Anyway, once I know the length and color scheme I want for each cork strip, I roll out hundreds of feet of colored paper so it is ready to have artwork taped and stapled to it later in the week.

Announcements, announcements and more announcements

Now, the fun part! I love getting the students excited for the show and getting the word out to our families and our community. This little piggy is from my main bulletin board and I added a thought bubble above him to countdown to the Art Show. I've also posted things on our Twitter account and our school's parent newsletter. Our principal has posted the info on our school's Facebook page and teacher's have put the invitation in their classroom newsletters. 

I think I've got every avenue covered!

Can't wait to post pictures of the actual event! Stay tuned!