Thursday, January 28, 2016

In the Art Room: LOVE This Sub Plan Collaborative!

As some of y'all might know because I've been talking about it nonstop (I often wonder just how I have acquired so many nice friends that allow me to ramble on and on without complaint. My guess is that they've formed some sort of support group), I've been out of school for several days due to el jury duty-o. You can see what I wore here cuz you know you wanna. Anywho, knowing that I was gonna be out for so long, I knew I'd have to leave some legit sub plans. So I created a couple of videos and was super pleased to see that both the kids and the subs were happy with the result. AND LOOK! Check out what they made whilst I was doin' my civic duty!
This is JUST ONE of the MANY huge banners that the kids created! Each child, kindergarten through fourth, created a quarter of a heart. Students with extra time then worked on making the letters. I was so excited to see them today that I used my planning time to hot glue them into place. To do that, I "borrowed" a roll of bulletin board paper from our work room, unrolled it onto my art room floor and set to work a-gluing. Like I said, this is just one big banner...the kids also created ones with letters that spell out SMILE, HAPPY and PEACE. They'll be going up on a large wall in our school cafeteria. But this one I was so stoked about that I grabbed a couple of teacher friends in the hallway and had them help me slap it up on the wall this afternoon. 
Our inspo for this project came from the artist Romero Britto and the art teacher Jenny K! Jenny has a great drawing sheet that features Britto and his designs. Knowing that I was going to be out several days, I really wanted a project that the kids could work on happily and successfully and be something that could brighten up and spread the good word of LOVE throughout our school!
On the first day I was out, I left this video for my sub to share with the students. I've never done video'ed sub plans before but I gotta tell ya, I'm NEVER going back to paper plans! This was fun and easy for both the sub and kids. And a happy sub is one that spreads the good word. I heard from my admin and teacher buds that both of my subs were thrilled to work in my room. Of course, I took the guess work out of it and made their day cake!
Today was my first day back and it's also my busiest of days. You now how it feels when you've been gone for many days, you feel completely out of the loop! I really felt relieved coming back knowing that my room was going to be in order and that my students would continue this project. Here are my kindergarten friends coloring away.
Many of you asked me about the art stix I refer to in the video. My students have a set of these and they are well loved. They are made by Prisma and are essentially the led of a color pencil. The colors are fantastically vibrant and the kids love using them. 
My younger students, kindergarten through first, created the bottom of the hearts while my older ones did the top. The reason behind this is that my older students have longer art classes and therefore more time to work on the big spaces. The papers the kids used are 12" squares. My sub and I used templates to create the thick line diagonal line that you see as well as the heart hump line (I know there's prolly a better word then heart hump but you knew what I was talking about, didn't you?!).
So that they could spot their part of the heart later, the student's name was written along the edge of their design. 

Once I started laying out the hearts I felt like they needed a little something more. So I flipped some upside down and noticed the diamond negative shape that was created. It was then I got the idea to have the kids create letters for those spaces. That's what this follow up video is all about...
                  
I put the sub in charge of tracing letters and the kids cut them out before decorating them.
This was such a successful sub plan that even though I'm not finished with assembling all of the pieces, I just had to share it with you right away! You know, in case you wanna do something like this for Valentine's Day. It's definitely a no-fuss type of project. Definitely one to consider at the start of the new school year when you want to introduce all of the elements of art and start your year with that WOW! factor. If you are interested in more of my lil videos, you can subscribe to my youtube channel here
 
In other fun and exciting news, you can hear my podcast interview with the INCREDIBLE Patty Palmer of Deep Space Sparkle, here! And if you do this lesson, please let me know, I'd love to hear your tips, tricks and see your student's end result!
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18 comments:

  1. Anonymous1/28/2016

    What format did you leave the video for the sub to play for the students?

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    1. Hi! I did it two ways because I was having computer issues. I usually upload my videos to youtube. But youtube is blocked at my school. So, at home, I used Clipgrab (a free app) to download my video to my laptop and then simply took my laptop to school. My sub just clicked on the video I'd placed on my laptop. Another alternative is dropbox. One day, I needed my laptop with me and had to use a school computer. So I added my video to my dropbox (a free to use website for sharing large files). Once at school, I logged into dropbox and opened my video. My computer is connected to my t.v. I hope that helps!

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  2. Anonymous1/28/2016

    When you create the others words such as smile or peace will you use hearts still as the main design?

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    1. HI! Yes, I'll still use the heart shapes...I just wanted a variety of words like Britto uses. Although peace signs would have been a fun idea!!

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  3. Anonymous1/28/2016

    Your personality shines in the videos. Fabulous. You make me want to make a letter. Thanks for the inspiration.

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  4. Hi Cassie. I absolutely love your blog and always find inspiration. I am going to start recording some of my lessons for students to review, substitutes, and for those times when I know I'm going to be repeating it throughout the week. I was curious if maybe you could show the tools you use when recording. Do you record your voice as you are creating your tutorial or add it in later? I tried to search to see if you had already posted about making your tutorials, but I didn't find anything. Again, thanks for adding inspiration to the art education world.

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    1. Hi! When I'm recording, I don't use any special tools, just my tripod and my camera, all recorded real time. Then I edit my clips together in iMovie. Super simple! Hope that makes sense!

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    2. Sara Danno2/01/2016

      Totally makes sense. Thanks! Also, I loved your session for the AOE Conference Saturday.

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    3. I'm so glad you did! Thank you!!

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  5. Wow! Always an inspiration to me for art ideas to use with my class. Now, about your lovely art teacher outfits... do you sew your own tights?

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    1. I usually get my tights from Amazon or Target, I've not made my own yet tho that sounds like fun!!

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  6. OMG Cassie, where did you get that color theory watch that you are wearing in the video??

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    1. It's the best, right?! It's a Swatch and I believe it was purchased off Amazon. Look up color wheel watch. It was a gift, so this is my best guess :)

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  7. Thank you so much for another inspiring lesson! I think I'm going to have my three Kindergarten classes create one of these :) Do you recommend having Kinders draw their own lines to divide their heart quarters into sections, or would you suggest I do that in advance and have them concentrate just on the patterns? (Time is definitely not an issue; I have 1-hour weekly sessions with each class.)

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  8. Thank you so much for another inspiring lesson! I think I'm going to have my three Kindergarten classes create one of these :) Do you recommend having Kinders draw their own lines to divide their heart quarters into sections, or would you suggest I do that in advance and have them concentrate just on the patterns? (Time is definitely not an issue; I have 1-hour weekly sessions with each class.)

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  9. Thank you so much for another inspiring lesson! I think I'm going to have my three Kindergarten classes create one of these :) Do you recommend having Kinders draw their own lines to divide their heart quarters into sections, or would you suggest I do that in advance and have them concentrate just on the patterns? (Time is definitely not an issue; I have 1-hour weekly sessions with each class.)

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  10. How did you trace the heart onto the papers? Did you create a stencil and cut while it was on a large paper, or did you cut the paper and then traced the stencil? Thanks!

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