In the Art Room: Taming the Kindergarten Beast!

 Well, today was my third art class with my kindergarten friends. If you wanna see what my first day looked like, you can visit here.  I always start my school year with kindergarten the very same way: get 'em in my art room, get them to learn the "cmon in and sit down on the floor" procedure and GET THEM TO MAKIN'! On that first day, they are just too young and curious and excited and afraid and ALL THE EMOTIONS (same for their art teacher!) to be learning rules and routines. So we save that for the second week of art. Instead, we begin our line unit with our line sculptures. You can check out our first day here: 

The second day looks very similar but I introduce how to make a zigzag and a spiral line. On the final day, I start learning a little bit more about the class and how they work. I learn the names of the students by the third day and start easing them in to our routines. One of the things I introduce them to are our Quiet Critters. This idea is from my amazing art teacher buddy Mia! Give her a follow! 

You can read more about Quiet Critters here (not my original idea!). They really do work...if you "believe" they work. Meaning, you gotta sell 'em hard to the kids so that they'll believe in them too. I use these with my kindergarten kids but even my first and second graders dig them. Shoot, even my fourth graders ask about them! They are a great way to help me establish the calm and kinda-sorta-quiet classroom I strive to have. I mean, I love for my students to chat with one another...softly. I want them to be engaged in conversation...without shouting. It's a skill that has to be taught and learned. And these wee friends do the trick!

Quiet Critters come in all shapes and sizes. In fact, these little guys are just made from extra large glitter pompoms (found at the craft store), felt for the feet, googly eyes and pipe cleaners. But even a collection of stuffed animals found at the thrift store would do the trick. I mean, really, anything you can hot glue a pair of googly eyes on will work. I'm not kidding! But remember, it's all about how hard you sell it. I also tell my students not to touch them. They are SUPER shy, you see. Because so many of my kids have an Elf on a Shelf at home, they are used to that concept. 

Here's a video of our third day of art. On this day, we are finishing our line sculptures to take them home. We review the word sculpture, the ways we learned to create the lines and were introduced to our Quiet Critters.

Now that we are finished with our introductory art lesson...it's time to start sharing with my small artists the art room rules and procedures. Next up we will be learning how to play the Clean Up Drums and Clean Up Gong! I'm ready for that excitement and so are my students. More to come on that!

In the Art Room: First Day of Art with Kindergarten!

This week I've had kindergarten for the first time! They are all kinds of wild, crazy, fun and squirrelly! I recorded a class on their first day and thought I'd share it with you. We ALWAYS do these paper sculptures on the very first day. They LOVE it, everyone is successful and it's great fun. Here's a video of me teaching this lesson:

If you want all the details on this project, then be sure and check out this blog post! I go in to great detail on just how I go about teaching this on the very first day. 

Y'all might recall that this is a lesson that I did with everyone last year...but I did it as a Getting to Know You activity. You can read all about that here. 

I have a lot to say about kindergarten as they are the toughest but funnest (says me) group to teach. You can read more about kindergarten in my art room here. 

After two 30 minute art classes on these sculptures, we jump into our LINE unit! You can read all about that right here! 

In the Art Room: Introducing Painting to Children

This week, all of my students in first through fourth grade started painting. It was their third day of art (you can see how we spent our first two days of art here and here). Keep in mind, with 30 minute art classes, cramming is as much as I like is tough. Our focus on this first day was to learn my painting procedures...all while making beautiful art. I won't go too much into it here as I have a big ole podcast episode all about it. Take a listen:

 If you are like me, you wanna see how the lesson is taught. So I recorded myself and I thought I'd share with you. What I always learn when watching myself teach is that I TALK TOO MUCH...but on that first day of teaching painting, there is so much to learn! So here you go:

On my Instagram this week, I've been sharing a lot of my painting set up and supplies. Because I got a lot of feedback about those shares, I thought I'd create a little Art Teacherin' 101 video all about my favorite supplies for painting: 

From here, my students will spend their second painting day doing a lot more painting and with a lot less talking from me. On the second day, I just do a reminder of our procedures and what it is we are working on. By the way, we are painting those shapes you saw in the first image. I bought those packets of precut shapes at IKEA. I initially thought they were just $1.50 a pack but they are actually $7 a pack with about 80 precut papers inside. Not the bargain I had thought it was. 

 We will be using those precut painted papers for a collaborative piece that I hope to share with you soon. If you watch the videos, you'll find out all the details on these LIDDED ice cube trays (where have you BEEN all my LIFE, trays?!). 

 All the heart eyes, people. All of 'em.

And my second favorite art supply for painting with children, these doggie dishes! Like I said, many more details on my painting set up and supplies in both the podcast and the video...so in an effort of not repeating myself, I'll stop yammering and let you take a listen and a looksee. Thanks, y'all!

In the Art Room: Second Day of Art 2019

Hey there, friends! Just popping in to share my second day of art class with my students. If you recall, I shared my first day here (with video!) if you are interested. My classes are 30 minutes in length and we have SO MUCH TO COVER. I filmed a video of what I (mostly) cover on the second day and thought I'd share it with you:

Now...here's what's not included in the video...after covering rules, I show my Art Room Etiquette video which is this:

It's just a fun and quick reminder of my routines and procedures. From there, I have the kids file to their seats as a reminder of where they sit. We spend short bit chatting about emergency drills. We line up for  fire, tornado, room clear and an intruder drill. To end art class, we all gather around my drums (yeah, I got a drum set) and we each take a turn playing a fill. This is what the kids will play if chosen to play the clean up drums. 

This insures that each child knows how to play a fill on the drums during clean up time from here on out. 

Before heading out the door, I give a quick demo and chat about the Clean Up Gong which is played right after the drums...and that's it! After all that, the 30 minutes is up and we gotta go. Next art class: we be painting! I'm so ready to get to art makin' with my people. 

And, just in case you missed it, here's my podcast episode all about my first days in art class! 

In the Art Room: School Pride Collaborative

Last year, my third grade students worked with their table groups of four friends to come up with positive four letter words that describe our school. Guess which lame-o and lazy art teacher JUST HUNG THEM UP THIS WEEK! That's right...this gal right here. 

 This collaborative is one that I think would be a wonderful back to school activity. It really inspired conversations on just who we are as a school and who we strive to be. As a class, we sat on the floor, looked at the work of both Jasper Johns and Robert Indiana. After a discussion of their work, I asked the kids to help me brainstorm a list of four letter positive words. Once the list was complete, the kids were to go to their seats and work as a team. Their assignment: settle on their word and who was going to paint what letter. 

 I had purchased 8" X 10" canvas boards for each student. However, matte board works just as well or even cardboard primed with some gesso! Then my students used carbon paper and a printed copy of enlarged letters. I had laid out every letter of the alphabet on a table for them to find. They would then lay the carbon paper on their canvas with the shiny side down, place their letter on top and trace. What this did was insure that all of our letters were the same size and font style. 

 Once their letter was traced, every child was tasked with deciding how to paint their letter. They could either use all of the cool colors for their letter or all of the warm. Then they were to use the reverse of that color scheme for the background. Like this:

 Having looked at the work of Jasper Johns and admiring his brush strokes, we used that as our inspiration...but really I left it open to the kids how they would paint their letters and background. I love the variety of these letters by my fourth graders. They did these as initial paintings:

It was a fun way to introduce two artists, color theory, discuss our school culture and get them painting and exploring pattern and brush stroke. 

And now they are finally up in our halls (I am a bit of a procrastinator!). I framed them with 16" X 20" frames. The artwork fit PERFECTLY! I chose frames that were lightweight and had plexiglass so if they frames fell, there would not be broken glass. 

 Each is hung with 2 Velcro Command strips. The small frames were thrift store finds! I chose small black frames with each being between 50 cents to a dollar. I then removed the glass and cut plexiglass for the inside. 

 In the small frame, I wrote "A Johnson Elementary, we are...COOL" and then I wrote who painted the four letters and the year. 

I love to do legacy projects and collaboratives with my students every year. There are plenty here on my blog...and this one is my new favorite. Such a wonderful way to start the new school year! 

DIY: Decorate Your Classroom on a Budget!

 I love a good ole fashioned DIY...don't you? A week ago, I hit Goodwill and went COMPLETELY NUTS. I purchased a whole bunch of things that I just knew I could reinvent, rainbow-ize and breathe new life into. And here they are! I'm sharing super quick DIYs on each of these here today...as well as some of my favorite Goodwill finds that I wanna encourage you to keep an eye out for! 

But first, let's take a look at the BEFORE...

 Need a little DIY-inspo? How about a good ole fashioned time lapse? Here you go:

Painting things rainbow-y is just about the easiest thing. I now have my rainbow peace sign hanging in a formerly blank spot and my cork board hanging on my door with my schedule pinned to it!

Now let's see if that I can keep up with my ID and my keys with that keyholder! Magic eight ball says "no." 

I did also scoop up some things that I can use around my room...these are things I always keep my eyes open for when I hit the thrift store. Here's a little shopping spree share:

I'm so excited to try out that Pictionary game! I've already been putting the grassy dryer thingie to work and loving it. Yay for good finds!

 Some days I walk right outta Goodwill empty handed...and then other days I walk out with my arms filled with brand new and adorable Quiet Critters! 

I MAY have gone a little overboard...but you know what, it was so stinkin' cheap and stuff that I am loving for my students and my art room. 

Things I always look for: funky clothing, stamps, clay tools, stuffies that are cute (or rainbow-y!), games for my early finishers, PENCIL SHARPENERS!, those bottle drying things which are perfect for paint cups!

LOVING my new wallhanging! Peace, people!

I have now found three of these workhorse of a pencil sharpener. I had one as a high schooler (usually made by Panasonic) and, lemme just tell you, they have outlasted all of my pencil sharpeners bought recently. When you spot these faux wood finished beauties, GET YOU ONE. You will be thrilled with how they sharpen everything, including color pencils!

You know any chance I can get to do a DIY and further decorate my art room, I'm gonna take it. It makes me happy, scratches that creative itch of mine and makes my art room an even more colorful place. Thanks for letting me share!

Art Teacherin' 101: My Favorite Art Teacherin' Hacks

I've been sharing so many classroom management hacks on my Instagram lately (and getting such a great response from teachers, thank you!) that I thought I'd put 'em all together in a video! These are the classroom management hacks I use on the very first days in art class...and they help me out so stinkin' much. I hope you find them helpful too. Here you go:

 Also, if you wanna hear about what my first day(s) of art were TRULY like, take a listen to this podcast. I didn't exactly practice what I preach (insert eeek-face emoji!):

 In my hacks video, I fail to mention that one of my fave hacks are showing some videos that I've created. I do chat about these in the podcast episode. Here are the videos I share on the first and second days of art:

First day Rules and Routines video!

Second day Art Room Etiquette video!

 I got a LOT of requests for these questions but, honestly y'all, there is nothing magical about them! They are literally random questions I ask each and every kiddo. Make up your own, I promise you'll love them and so will your students. 

I LOVE this hack: these are my daily schedule folders. I teach the same classes on Monday, same on Tuesday, etc. Since my schedule is different every day, it gets to be...a lot. So I staple my schedule to the front of a daily folder. Then I color copy my class lists and place the color matching list inside the folder. On that class list, I also write my seating chart. What I love about this is that everything is color coded and easy for me to keep up with. AND I love it for a sub! She now can easily see my schedule, my matching class list and seating chart. Been doing this for a couple years now and love it.

 And this is my Happy/Sad board for individual behaviors! I tried hard to explain this in my podcast but it was close to impossible without a visual. So here you are! The goal is for me not to move the button down. If I do, it's after a couple of warnings. Once it's moved down, the kiddo can work to improve their behavior and have it moved back up...if they do, fantastic! If not, well then I need to have a little chat with their teacher. It's such an easy tool and works well for me. 

 The colors of paper match my tables and the numbers coordinate with their individual seat spots. 

And it was simply made with flat marbles, puffy paint and velcro on a clipboard!

I hope you find at least a couple of these hacks helpful. Have a wonderful school year! 

In the Art Room: First Day of Art 2019-2020

I have been talking SO MUCH on this blog and on my podcast about the first days of school. You can read all about how I set up my art room (complete with a video room tour), my very favorite (and easiest!) classroom management tool, my favorite first day of art projects, my art room rules, and my art room routines by clicking any of these blog post links!

It's all wonderful to hear about how folks do things but I find it's even better to see it in action. So...today I'm sharing a video of all the things we run through on the very first day in art (keep in mind, my classes are 30 minutes in length.)

Here's what I do:

* I do my greeting, which you'll hear.
* We learn our Art Class Catchphrase.
* I introduce the Word of the Day.
* We talk about the Open/Closed sign.
* We talk about the Happy/Sad board. 
* We watch this video:

* We stretch!
* We greet each other and I ask a list of silly questions (more on that in an upcoming blog post!).
* We get our assigned seats. 
* We learn the lining up routine...and that's it!

My list of things to cover was much longer but time was not on our side. Notice...we didn't make any art! And we didn't on our second day either as we had rules to review, consequences to chat about, another video to watch, emergency drills to cover and drums to play. I will be posting a video of that second day later this week (or next, mama's tired!). 

Speaking of tired...I'm not as bad off as I would be if I hadn't made a handful of these videos a couple of years ago. They kids LOVE my rules and routines videos! If you don't make videos like those, I encourage you to do so, it will save your sanity, voice and energy. 

Stay tuned...I've been slowly sharing my favorite art room hacks on my Instagram (@cassie_stephenz) and I'll be doing a proper post here. I love sharing what works for me...it just might work fo you!

 Last year, I also shared a "first days glimpse" series of videos...if you want to check those out, you can see them here. 

AND I have been sharing everything in even more detail on my new podcast, Cassie Stephens! You can download and take a listen anywhere. If you feel so inclined to leave a glowing and glorious review, well....I certainly won't stop you. Have a wonderful weekend, friends!