Art Teacherin' 101: Episode 3

In last week's Art Teacherin' 101, I chatted about my three big tips of putting together an art show: deer mesh, parent volunteers and a day off the day of the show. Next week, I'll share with y'all how incredible the two-dimensional displays the parents put up of all the students' work from all year. I have been greatly over-sharing here sneak peaks of the 1950's Diner theme for our clay displays. Well, it all went down last night and I gotta tell ya, it was BANANAZ in the best possible way. To best explain it to y'all, I thought I'd give you a guided tour of our JES Diner in this week's Art Teacherin' 101!

This was our first thematic art show and I daresay I'm totally addicted (as are the young artists, faculty and staff who all joined in on the fun). Not sure what I'll dream up to top this one! Here are a handful of snaps from the clay displays. 

To build excitement, I shared a countdown to the Diner opening on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Gotta get that social media buzz going, y'all!

Even with the day off the day of, I found myself struggling to get everything I dreamed up ready. Thankfully, I had my helper mamas, my OWN mama and some former students who are now in middle school help me. They put finishing touches on the mural, created displays, made labels and helped me hang the paper chains...all at the eleventh hour. It takes a village, people. And, sometimes, even The Village People if they know how to handle a hot glue gun. Let's talk projects!

We all learned about the artist Peter Anton who creates large realistic sculptures of food. Here you see my Kindergarten Tacos!

I put out an email for displays to the teachers and I got cake stands, cupcake holders and these chip and dip platters which were perfect for our taco displays. 

First grade town made these precious coffee and donuts. We even used our little weavings as small placemats. 

Cups and saucers were glazed and re-fired while donuts were painted with tempera and puffy paint (a crowd favorite). 

Although, in first grade town, it's referred to as "puppy paint". Y'all. It's not made from puppies!

Second grade made cupcake containers with two pinch pots. 

All clay projects were create in one week known as CLAY {CRAY} WEEK. To make my life a little easier, I did film all of my clay lessons and show them to the kids. This freed me up to prep clay while they watched. You can see more of that video-watching-demo-doing here. 

For third grade, I wanted to do both hamburgers AND pancakes...so I split the lesson. Meaning two of my classes did burgers (and anything extra, time permitting) and and two did pancakes (and, again, anything extra. Only requirement was that it be a food). 

The burgers HAD to be displayed in these sweet paper wrappers and trays, right?! I mean, that was a no brainer. By the way, when one of my students pretended to eat his fake food, I got the idea to snap photos of the kids with their food either as a chef, a server or a customer. All photos were printed and the kids used those to create advertisements for the show (seen above)...

I then dropped all of the photos into a vintage-esque slide show which played on a loop during the art show. Along with some 50's tunes, of course!

Both the burgers and pancakes are containers! Many students painted their plates as well, which I loved. 

Some were so realistic it was pretty crazy!

I mean...awesome, much? 

For fourth grade, I had them create pizza, pie and cake containers. These really blew me away. We looked at a ton of cake photos which inspired many. 

I mean, just looking around would give you cavities! Many of the kids took their projects home today and they were so excited.

Another class made pies. I am loving the detailed crust of this one. 

Key lime pie is actually my fave...how did she know?!

Displaying them in pie pans from the Dollar Store really set these off. 

Sbarro at the Cool Springs Galleria donated pizza boxes for this display! Big shout out to them, thank you so much. It really made our display so much more pizza-y. 

Extra food by fourth was created and added to the displays as well. 

 Before the art show, I created a video lesson on what a diner is (you can view that here) and we looked at images of clothing worn during that time. All students and faculty were encouraged to dress for the big day. I brought in a ton of clothing, scarves, sweaters and brooches to "dress" the staff. On the left you see my awesome specials teammates and on the right you might recognize my Christmas Tree Skirt friends!

We have close to 400 students in our school...we had over 600 folks show up to the art show! My room was so insanely crowded (as were the halls) that my husband who took these photos could hardly move! 

I saw later on Facebook, so many families sharing photos of their children dressed and happily smiling with their art...it really made me so happy. Makes the exhaustion worth it!

Check out these sweet kindergarten artists! Y'all can see the skirt I'm wearing that the kids helped to splatter paint here. 

I can't wait to share their two dimensional hall displays with you as they are incredible! Until then, I'm just gonna sit here with my feets up.