Sunday, August 17, 2014

What the Art Teacher Wore #110 and First Full Week of Skool!

 Maniac Monday: Some crazy man (aka Ginger Jesus) decided to photobomb my outfit posts this week. During my first photo attempt, I was outside snapping pics. When I scrolled through the photos, I noticed that SOMEBODY was in the background pressing his large white belly against the glass window. So I decided to snap some pics inside and he found his way into this picture. I'd say he should do a daily What Ginger Jesus Wore but it would just be a repeat of the previous days as this dude is always in head-to-toe brown. If ever I have to file a Missing Persons it will be "Sasquatch Man Last Seen in Brown". on me, top: garage sale; skirt: etsy; shoes: Target, last season; bangles: gifts; palette hair clip: made by me. On hubs: t-shirt: army surplus; shorts: thrifted

Well, hello friends! I'm proud to say that I made it through my first full week back in Art Teacherin' Land! It was a super fun week and I can't wait to share with y'all what we've been up to. Howeves,  if I learned one thang this week it's that I have to let go of my late nightin' ways. No more hitting the hay at 11pm only to rise and shine at 5am. Cuz ain't nobody shinin' when they crawl outta bed looking like a drunken zombie. So! Lesson learned. This week my new bedtime is 10:59pm.

Speakin' of this week, I'm super excited to announce that the Apron Sew-Along starts this coming week! Yippie! So many of you all have shared your fab fabric choices and I cannot wait the finished results. In this first week's Apron Sew-Along post, I'll share with you how to create your own pattern, cut your fabric, stitch a pocket and attach that bad boy to your apron! You can follow along with me if you wanna or create an apron design all your own. I'd love it if you'd join the Apron Sew-Along page and share your progress with the rest of us.

In this here post, along with my Back-to-School attire, I thought I'd give you a sneak peak of our first couple of days in art class and just what we've been working on. Teacher buds, did any of y'all head back this week? What are your lil artists creating? More deets on this projects soon. In the meantime, have a great week and I'll see you at the Apron Sew-Along!
Have y'all heard of International Dot Day? It's a celebration based around the Peter H. Reynolds' book The Dot. This book is a fantastic beginning-of-the-school-year book as it celebrates a young artist who once thought she was not. International Dot Day is September 15th and kids all across the globe are creating dots in celebration. We celebrated last year and got a great response from both the kids and adults. So we're back at it again this year. I'd love to hear if you and your student are celebrating and what they are creating in honor of Dot Day.
My first grade kids started painting during their first week of art. No sense wasting any time, right? These guys painted many a masterpiece in kindergarten so we didn't have to use too much time chatting about painting dos and don'ts. That totes had this. Instead we painted about our artist inspiration: Wassily Kandinsky and made concentric circles, aka circles that hug each other! More on what is to become of these paintings soon.
Cat's Butt Tuesday: If it's not the hubs doin' the photobombin', it's the cat. Here she is showing you her better side. top, shoes and skirt: vintage, thrifted; belt: Pin Up Girl Clothing
In second grade land, we are making reversible paintings on pizza rounds. I know, right?! I decided that we'd also use Kandinsky as our inspiration and remembered there being a REVERSIBLE KANDINSKY painting featured in the movie Six Degrees of Separation. And I was all I'M A GENIUS! Check out this clip:
Guess what I learned after doin' a wee bit of homework? Kandinsky never painted a reversible painting. GAH, what?! A movie LIED to me?! What'll I find out next, that there is no Wizard of Oz?! Aw, well. We're still making reversible paintings. Humph.
Kindergarten Wednesday: We had an invasion of the littles on Wednesday. I had two 45 minute classes of the just-turned-five-10-minutes-ago set and they were amazing! Seriously! We took a tour of the art room, learned the Word of the Day (deets to come), found that we are artists and that we were gonna create a sculpture! What I love about these little guys is their enthusiasm. It's like pure joy. I wish I could bottle it. Like, seriously, sometimes, I wish I COULD bottle it and put a cork in it but on this day, it was precious. sweater: thrifted; heart top: Target, last season; skirt and shoes: Anthropologie
Every the kids heard the word of the day, which was artist, we all gave a "whoop-whoop!". We took a ride on the art train, chugged around the room admiring everyone's sculptures and proclaimed each kid to be an artist...after which they received a "whoop-whoop!". Trust me, after 45 minutes of "whoop-whoop!" was I just about whooped out. Er, wiped out. Whatever.
The base for our sculptures were, you guessed it, a dot!
Thursday!: Did I tell y'all that I now have my 3rd and 4th for an hour after YEARS of 30 minutes?! You guys, it was amazing! In one fourth grade class we learned our word of the week, chatted about Kandinsky, played instruments, danced, painted, SPLATTER painted, cleaned up, read a book, played a game. Seriously. Every time I looked at the clock I was like, wait, we have more time! skirt, shoes and top: thrifted
Y'all aren't gonna believe this but I got all sorts of techie this week. Suriously. I showed a couple of Prezis (so fast, fun and easy to create! I use the art gallery template), played music via Pandora (after I complained that my CD player was broken, a 3rd grader said, "um, use your computer!" Duh.) and I made these super fun signs on recitethis.com. Y'all gotta check that out, it's the jam.
Fried-Day: Totes. I ain't used to this 5 days a week biznatch! Time to up the b-vitamin/caffeine/sugary-cereal intake. art supplies blouse: DIY here; pencil-y skirt: DIY here
Oh, well, lookie here. Don't worry, this didn't happen in the art room but in our kitchen on Saturday morning. I had this grand idea that I'd bake banana bread even though 1. I don't bake, I start fires (obviously) and 2. I don't even like banana bread all that much. Especially when it looks like chewed-up-spit-out meatloaf (which meatloaf already looks chewed up and spit out but I digress). When I opened the oven the flames were actually huge. I quickly closed the door and ran for my camera. As I ran by hubs who had this "what's that smell?! why are you running?!" look on his face I told him, "I know you smell smoke but don't worry. It's just breakfast. And the fire is self-contained". 

Looks like you'll never have to worry about finding any cooking posts on this hear blog, eh? I'll just stick with the stitchin' and teachin', thank ya vury much. Until next time, get that apron fabric ready, kids! And we'll chat soon. 

11 comments:

  1. Hooray! Our kiddos are back to school next week- excited! Question- did the 'Teach Like a Pirate' impact your way of starting? In my world, you are already a pirate- so dynamic! And Ginger Jesus is awesome- can we start a fan club?

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    1. Hey Rebekah! Well, I thought it would...but when I started plotting and planning out my first couple of days I realized I couldn't squeeze in much more or act any more crazy than I currently do. However, I have noticed that I mellow out and fall into a routine (or rut maybe?) so his chapter on "hooks" will definitely motivate me to act all pirate-y throughout the year. And, yeah, let's not encourage Ginger Jesus but starting a fan club, ermkay?! ;)

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  2. Cassie-where do you buy the cake rounds? I've gotten them at Hobby Lobby but figured there MUST be a less expensive place to get them.
    Thanks!!

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    1. Hey Andrea! Well, I shopped around online for a hot minute and found that Amazon sells them via School Specialty. I tried to order them from School Specialty (for free shipping) but I found their checkout system to be a real pain (or maybe it was operator error). So, check Amazon...they actually come in a variety of sizes. I got an order of 100 for under $20. Hope that helps!

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    2. Yes, it does! Thank you!

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    3. Anonymous9/02/2014

      The parchment rounds found here?

      http://www.amazon.com/Regency-Parchment-Paper-Circles-10-Inch/dp/B000X4K59O/ref=sr_1_11?ie=UTF8&qid=1409675464&sr=8-11&keywords=circle+rounds+paper

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  3. Anonymous8/18/2014

    Thanks for sharing the recite this! I printed out a few myself and I'm not good at techie stuff. This week my 2nd graders did selfies like other famous artists only theirs went on b.board paper school busses like those I saw in Arts and Activities mag. Third graders made animal rubbings to go with the Lascoux cave art DVD clip and the time line and acted out a skit cave man style. Fourth graders painted six buildings to cut and put 3 on foam bd. squares to show overlapping like we did at TAA 2 or 3 years ago. Fifth graders are working on oil pastel color wheels with their initials in complimentary colors on top of it. 15th year teaching art and lovin' it. -Love your blog- Keep it up girl! You are one awesome art teacher. -Regina Crawley

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    1. Wow, Regina, your artists had a super busy and fun week, didn't they?! I love all that you are doing! And I'm glad you found recite this to be a good tool. I know I enjoyed playing around :) Great to hear from you!

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  4. A great week-in-review! (Kandinsky DID do REVERSE-PAINTING-ON-GLASS….so that's close enough, right?)

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  5. Ah, I didn't know that!! Good to know, thank you for the info. Yes, that counts in my book :)

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  6. Well my Kiddos are going on week three of this school year. First week nothing but rules really ( I really need to figure out a new way to do all that). Second week we started some projects like crayon resist names with kinder friends, detail panda drawings with 1st and 2nd grade and making sketchbooks with 3rd-5th grades ( sketchbooks super easy two hole punches and then place rubber band through both holes and paper clip them together) This week all my students are taking their art pretest( They will take a post test at around the end of the year so I can show data to my principal). Since I am a stellar plainer and think so far ahead this means I get the joy of grading almost 600 tests this week YAAAAAAAY.....

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