Third grades winter collages in progress

Student's in third grade are loving their winter collage landscapes! 

Kimmy Cantrell Sculptures

iPad Scavenger Hunt Critiques with 4th grade!

This past spring I had the amazing opportunity to be part of a pilot program for iPad's in Education. We worked with Fordham University to analyze how beneficial (or non beneficial) iPads would be for student learning. I was so impressed! Student retention of vocabulary and skills increased. Not only that, but as we transitioned to doing everything on the iPads, they were actually asking for opportunities to write and take tests! I love using this technology not only for creating art, but also for classroom management, writing, researching, and even fun ways to study and take tests. 

Recently I adapted my art history lesson on masks to include a scavenger hunt with their QR reader and critique writing in Evernote! A QR reader will scan bar codes that will send students to either a file, image, or website. I set them up to send my students to images on the web of masks from around the world. Evernote is an internet based notebook style program that can be used as an app on iPads or as a program downloaded on a PC. It will sync back and forth between devices so you can always access the most current version of whatever you have worked on in either place. My theory was that I could have them write in Evernote on any iPad device and it would sync to my computer to look at later. I would then get the added benefit of being able to to run the lesson paperless!

Left side shows folders organizing classes. Right side shows different notes students created in Evernote

Students were to select a QR code to scan and view then open Evernote to write an aesthetic response as a group. They were shown how to switch back and forth between the image in the QR reader and Evernote to write. After finishing their critique, their next activity was to open a new camera note and take a picture of a mask. Evernote has a great feature that allows you to annotate on the image. Students were able to then demonstrate to me where they could see examples of line, shape, color, and other fun details about the mask that they liked. They could select color options (they "ooo" and "aaah" over this) and tool options, such as arrows (super fun!) and text for annotating. My special needs students and severely handicapped students loved being able to leave a voice note instead of writing. 

Writing Sample in Evernote

Management included: 

• One iPad per group of 3-4 students (for special needs students a 1:2 ratio would be better)
• Using class Dojo rewards system to reward students 
• Setting up the iPad a week before the lesson 
• Checking everything worked before they arrived
• Setting up a class iCloud email address (any email would be fine) and using this class email for the Evernote account  on each iPad
• In Evernote, creating a 4th grade notebook stack 
• Each class having their own notebook
• Inside their class notebook a group note with their writing example-they wrote below the example
• A voice note with directions for each class

I am truly loving having the opportunity to freshen up old lessons and see the students love writing about art! 

It's been two years already?

My little loves

So I stopped blogging. For a good reason though! My little babies came into my life one after another and are keeping me busy! Once in a while I might post something fun I'm doing in my classroom, but I probably won't be as quick as other bloggers. 

Recent fun things in my classroom since returning: iPad's & a Smartboard! Wahoo! 

I've also had to get more structured with assessments, but I found a few easy ways to handle that as well. Keep a lookout for some new posts! 

Radial Symmetry Color Wheel- can't wait to share this gem with you! 

Giant in a City!

I love this project! We just started making the cut paper giant animals- their choice of animal!

We placed our animal in the background paper and started to learn about background, middle ground, and the foreground as we draw the city buildings around them! We will outline the city and color it in with crayon.

I can't wait to show you them when their finished!

Let's Design a Room!

 The fourth graders LOVED designing their own rooms! They thought it was "Magic" when we made the rooms have long hallways that showed two more rooms behind! Below you will see the steps to making this simple enough for our fourth graders!

Folk Art Villages!

Folk art towns were probably my students favorite project, aside from the hands drawings they did earlier this year.  They just love using tempera paint, and who doesn't love drawing simplified, creative towns? These projects were a huge hit! 

Gumballs For Sale!

 

Gumball Machines! We just started this last week with two of the seven fourth grade classes I see, and as you can see they sure are adorable! When they were in third grade we worked with Wayne Thiebaud, making delicious desserts that mimicked his style and use of the elements of art. This is a follow up

Welcome 2012!

How is your new year going so far? My new year started with handing in my supply order with a smaller budget than last year. Disappointed that we have to cut again this year, but still excited to flip through the catalogs and order materials. I can't wait to try out some of the new things I ordered!


Well, I've been busy trying to catch up with everything I ignored the week before we had winter break. I think I'll try to take some pictures of what we're working on this week to post about over the weekend.  I have two doctors appointments this week and needed to take off work for them, so it'll be a while before I have a post about what we're doing in class... but here's a tease: it's awesome!

While you're waiting for updates on my class projects, why don't you tell me what you're doing this year so far? How are you starting 2012? Any class related resolutions? Fun new materials you're trying out? Fun winter related art work being created? Let me know & Best of luck on your new years resolutions! !

Snowmen Decorations by Art Club

The beautification/decoration committee asked me to help add in children's artwork for the holiday decorations. I had them purchase large over-sized poster board for silly snowmen to hang from the ceiling tiles, and things to make snowmen ornaments with to hang with the snowmen! 

Super Silly Snowmen!

Dancing, ice skating, falling in the snow- these are the super silly snowmen my third graders created!

Just finished outlining our drawings

I love the snowman that fell down!

We learned how to show distance through size placement, and how to blend oil pastel to make an icy looking shadow! They had a lot of fun making the snowmen act really silly in the background!

What silly snowmen activities did you do for winter projects?

Tinted Winter Landscapes

Kids just adore mixing paint! They love, love, LOVE the magic of color changing right before their very eyes! When I break out the thick, liquid tempera paint  in class to them it's just like winning the lottery! 

I'm sure you have seen or done something like this before, but it is just

Do You Have Special Needs Artists Too?

Now, as art teachers we've always had to work with every child in the building. They all get to come and enjoy learning about art. It's that one subject that seems to be the least stressful for those children who have attention problems or dyslexia and struggle in their classes. There is movement, they can stand up, there are "No Mistakes, only New Opportunities". Creativity seems to be their strongest point!

Adaptive Multistep, Pre-cut Homes

Then there are those very low functioning students. Do you have them too? I have them about three times  a week- each.  Since they can't learn a new language, as they are still learning their native English, and they can't research or follow in the Media Center, and they cause more distractions in Music as they don't speak or sing but play- they are left with art and P.E.!

Adaptive Snowman

Now, I want them to feel successful and participate in class. However, they

Growing Support for the Arts

Last year was a difficult year for my school district. We lost a lot of funding, the budget didn't pass, and the governor was sending a very anti-schools message to the community.  Our state was (and still is) in financial despair, leaving state jobs at risk.  We already had two Related Arts members retire and their jobs were replaced with part timers instead of full timers. The Spanish teacher's job almost disappeared, and my job was at risk of turning into teaching at two buildings when the art teacher at the primary school retired. Things were not looking in the "glass is half full" direction. So my team went into proactive mode.

We tried to shine positive light on the arts, and educate the public on the value of arts education.  If people know how valuable art education is, and the wonderful things that happen in the Related Arts classrooms, then why would they want to get rid of it? Right? This way, when cuts come down the chain, maybe they would look elsewhere.

We began a newsletter to the community. Each member of the team wrote articles about the value of our program, helpful tips for parents, things that were amazing that we were working on, fun facts for the subject areas (like Van Gogh's birthday!) and took lots of pictures of what we were doing with the kids.

The articles were worked on in Microsoft Publisher, and turned into PDF files. It was laid out then to look like a magasine, with a table of contents and all.  We delivered it in a few ways to the community. First, through the Honeywell instant alert system to go directly to the parent emails on file.  Second, posted on our e-boards and the main school website.  Lastly, delivery through photocopying and sending it to a senior citizen's center for the seniors in our community to read. They are after all, important voters who still pay taxes! Many still want to be involved in our districts!

The feedback was overwhelming. We had parents emailing us how nice it was to hear what was happening in our classrooms, as they have a hard time making time to see us. We had the Superintendent write a nice letter to us for being so proactive and driven. Our principal was excited that we were shining positive light on our school and ourselves. It was all around great! So wonderful in fact, that we're in the middle of making our fall/winter edition for this years newsletter.

Other growing support for the arts ideas include:

Board of Ed Bulletin Board

• Family Night Out Arts Night
• Newsletters
• Art Show in Community Store Window Fronts
• Make a Mural in town
• Get positive light in the town newspaper!
• Display art in the Board of Ed
• Charity Art:  Hospitals and Senior Centers using your art club or art class (great newspaper publicity)
• Have the Girl Scouts or Boy Scouts do volunteer projects with you for their leadership awards
• Post videos on your school website of the art show and other group projects
• Have the students docent your art show to discuss with parents what they learned and how to make the projects in the show
• Combine your art with a language arts class to make a illustrated book about the value of art and share it with the parents and board of ed as a "Cross Curricular" project 
• March is Youth Arts Month- Celebrate it!

The point of this is to make what you and the other Related Arts staff do so fabulously accessible to the community, and to shine positive publicity on anything that you can do with you subject area as a teacher. Teach the community what makes art and the other Related Arts so important, and make yourself known so they will miss you if your subject area is gone. 

Any other ideas? Please Share!

Ready Leaders; Take Over!

Aren't their smocks cute too?

I have to thank a fifth grade teacher for inspiring me into having leaders in my art room! The kids get so excited to get their chance to wear their leader tag, and I make sure every child gets a turn throughout the year.

I know many of you have systems of giving clean up jobs to your kids and other various classroom responsibility jobs are handed out on top of that in some fashion.  I also have special systems in place for clean up and odd jobs. This leader tag system was my way of managing everything that happens in my room on top of the clean up system.

Every time the class arrives for art

Encouraging Self Reflecting Artists

Remember those days when children would walk up to you, poke your shoulder, and ask if they were done? I'm proud to say I have nearly eliminated that, just by posting these signs!

What Elementary Art Teachers are REALLY Thankful for...

With Thanksgiving dinner just around the bend, I thought about what art teachers like myself might be really thankful for if we had a perfect day:

1. All the brushes in the classroom were mysteriously cleaned and stored handle down on their own
2. The hand print on the back butt-pocket of your pants actually came out in the wash this time
3. The art room's slop sink which was dubbed the "classroom bath" for never draining properly is now a whirlpool of perfect drain suction
4. The principal decided art was so important that

Jasper Johns Fabulous!

Don't you just love it when their eyes light up when they have discovered a new magical art material!  Here's a new take on a scratch art extension lesson that just gives them that "aha!" feeling.  

Right before this lesson we worked with our traditional scratch art boards and tools enjoying the gold paper that shines through when scratching away the black surface. Now they learned how to make their own scratch art surface, while I snuck in some art history on Jasper Johns and little color theory! Sneaky, sneaky art teacher! 

It really is a very simple project, but with a very beautiful final product. I love fourth grade! 

An Ode to Warhol

They Got Creative!

If you walked into my room when I was working on these with the kids, you would think I robbed the "Can Can" sale at ShopRite. Spread out all around our classroom tables we had various canned veggies, fruits, and other foods with all their fun colorful labels cheerfully gazing up at my kiddies while learned a little about advertising. They described the uniqueness of the cans, the fun lettering for the names, how the labels are organized to catch the consumers attention, and the graphic images they spotted along the way. My favorite can was Popeye's Spinach! 

After learning a little through observing real world cans, we turned our attention to Andy Warhol's soup cans! We discussed all that encompasses his artwork, and went through with our opinions of it. 

By then they had so many ideas of their own they were bursting at the seams! We drew cylinders, with the option to have the lids opened or closed like Warhol did. They came up with their own soup names, but used font graphics to make it look appetizing! We had to come up with a "slogan" for their label, a design or image on the label, and simple colors to make their soup can look appealing to the consumers. 

Finally, we shaded, some added shadows, and elaborated on the white space around the cans. They were very, very creative with it!

Lovely Little Story Pots

Admit it, we all love a good story, especially when it comes from that adorable little one in your class that is missing their front teeth and is jumping up and down talking a mile a minute! Here is your perfect opportunity to channel that creative energy into something productive that also ties in with cross curricular requirements. Native American Story Pots! 

Third grade begins their journey in writing creative stories, as well as some history on Native Americans. I combined these two elements to have