So, just what does every art teacher on the planet think of on his/her last days of art teacherin'? What they plan on teaching next school year, that's what! For the next couple of weeks, I'm going to be sharing with you some of my favorite (and simple!) school-wide collaborative projects. These are easy and fun ways to unite your young artists as well as shine a spotlight on your program from the start of the new school year. I'll also be speaking on this topic at this summer's AOE online conference: Back to School with a Bang! School-Wide Collaborative Projects to Kick Your School Year Off Right. I hope you'll be there to join the fun!
Not only that, but with each post in this series, I'll be hosting a GIVEAWAY!
That's right, y'all! Here's what's up for grabbies this week:
A whole buncha gently used artsy t-shirts, size large! Yay! Here's how you can enter to win:
* Click the follow button on the right of your screen if you've not already.
* Leave a comment below! I'd love to hear what collaborative projects you've done with your students to I can steal them next year!
I'll notify you of your win this time next week when I post another School-Wide Collaborative Series post. Good luck, y'all!
Now, let's chat the school-wide collaborative at hand, shall we? Our Village of Kindness! Each one of my students, kindergarten through third (fourth was too busy weaving up their pouches at the time) worked on creating a house for our village. If you've been hangin' around this blog for a bit (what's WRONG with you?! Get a hobby, man! I kid. Thank you.), then this might look slightly familiar as I shared with you the first stages of this project here.
In case clicking on that link is too difficult for you right meow (I get it. I'm on summer vacay. I don't do NUTHIN I ain't gotta), lemme give you the short version of this project. My super awesome cafeteria friend saved and rinsed out a mountain of milk cartons for me. Each kid got their own, signed the bottom and spent their first day painting it with warm colors.
The following day, we used a miniature brush and added details in the cold colors. Oh! And we read that book The Big Orange Splot which a great read. If you don't own it, it's prolly like a buck on amazon. Throw that in your shopping cart along with those beach reads you've been eyeing. You've earned it!
Then we busted out the funky monkey scissors, oil pastels and went to town on our roofs and doors.
Now, our village is one of kindness (hence the name. duh.) so when you opened the doors of the house, it's supposed to say something nice to you. Give a warm fuzzy. A cotton candy hug. An emotional high five. You get the idea.
The village itself was created on those last days of school. The kids worked with their friends and finished simple patterns that I started. Like trees!
And flowers!
Then we collaged the papers into a landscape. I simply hot glued 'em to a piece of background paper and double-sided sticky taped it to my white board.
Because Art Show Land was closing in on me, I took the liberty of adding the blue outline. This giant landscape looked a whole lot like the ones my fourth graders just finished.
Extra painted sheets of paper were used as table cloths. So that the kids could easily find their houses on the night of the art show, parent volunteers divided the class "towns" up with strips of black paper as roads.
Ohhhh, and those ceiling tiles? Another collaborative! I'll be sharing details of that soon so stay tuned!
The added bonus of that mural is that it's now up as decoration for the new school year! Oh, and that bunting you see at the bottoms of the table? The kids created that with the remnants of their large painted papers. They simply glued them to long strips of red paper. They were then adhered to the tables for the art show!
And there you have it! A school-wide project to kick your school year off right. Teaching kindness is a full time job. I love starting the school year with that theme.
Don't forget to enter the giveaway, kids! Good luck and we'll chat soon!
Oh dear Lawd. Please don't ask me what is happening here as I've no explanation.
Well this here blog post is just a pinch delayed! I do believe we're heading into the second MONTH of the school year in my neck of the woodz. Howevers, since I did post a First Days of Art Class last year, I thought I'd share another this year. Some things have changed (with some influence from Teach like a Pirate by Dave Burgess, one of our Artsy Book Club choices) while some have remained the same. I thought I could best explain myself (complete with odd hand motions, apparently) in a coupla short vid clips. One thing I forgot to mention in the clip are the flashcards I used on that very first couple of days. You can see 'em here...
I like to use flashcards at the door as the kids enter. To get them into this routine, I flashed 'em these as they entered. Once everyone was in and on that red line, I told them that this group of words they read had two things in common: they were words that described them and words that described art class.
Just a lil close-up of our Word of the Week. I actually see my kids on a 6 day rotation so this is more of a Word of the Every Six Day Rotation. Which wouldn't fit on my sign so I took some liberties. Since we are in our 3rd rotation of the year, we've thus far chatted about the words "artist", "unique" and "creative". As far as artist inspirations go, we've looked at Kandinsky, Hundertwasser (boy, that was a fun name to teach the kids) and and Rizzi. We've yet to use the phone to Dial-an-Artist...I'll let you know when we do.
That Spring Drum was pretty rad, amiright? I know you want one. They are made by Remo and if you google "spring drum" for a hot minute, you'll find tons of retailers with 'em for cheap. Mine is a larger size but I'm willing to guess a smaller one would work just as well. Lookie here.
My rules with some Haring illustrations. I'll eventually post these permanently somewheres in the art room. By the way, those questions I ask the kids can be just about anything. I just wanna get them talking and feeling comfortable. I also wanna keep it kinda short for those long winded friends of mine.
In all honesty, I've yet to use this routine. I can't seem to break myself of my normal habit of getting the kids attention which is either playing my Energy Chime (thanks, hubs!) or saying, "Point to the ceiling. Point to the floor. Point to your nose. Point to your toes." That usually does the trick. But I'm gonna keep trying.
Um-hmm, y'all better behave. Less you wanna look at this.
Oh, I did mention The Smartest Artist in that clip. More deets here. AND Dot Day! We're closing in on the big day! I'd love to hear what you are up to. I just hope my genius artists can finish in time, agh!
Oh! And in case you missed my Virtual Room Tour posted a coupla weeks ago, here you go!
