What the Art Teacher Wore #144 and a Contest!

 Motivational Monday: Welp, we're back! My small kindergarten thru eighth grade school district is made up of eight schools. To kick off the school year, we always gather for a pep talk by our superintendent (whom I've decided is the best in all the land. Y'all won't find a more kind-hearted or humble person) and his posse. This year, they brought in speaker and singer Keni Thomas, a Task Force Ranger who was apart of what we know as Black Hawk Down. Y'all. I can't even. This man's story was incredible. Never have I attended a professional development that was more inspiring. If you can talk your admins into hosting this amazing individual, I strongly recommend it! dress: made by me! go here; scarf: vintage, thrifted; pencil shavings bag: made by Fossil, found on ebay; shoes: Swedish Hasbeens, Anthro; color wheel watch: made by Swatch, go here

Well, it's official. School's back in session, y'all! After a week of gettin' all kinds of pro-developmentishness, I finally get my kitten mittens on the kids come Monday. And I'm so excited! I've got big fat plans for those wee artists and I can't wait to get started. By the way, if you'd like to know what I do on my first days of art (and see my "old" art room, I've since redecorated!) go here! But first, I've got news for you!

Do y'all recall last week when I mentioned a lil What the Art Teacher Wore/Back to Schoolin' Contest? Well, the deal just got real, kids! Not only will you appear here but School Arts Magazine has also decided to run a feature of your art teacherin' self! Not only that, but the winner will get a free subscription to the magazine! How fun is that?! Here's how you can enter (please read carefully, I don't want you to miss a single step!):

*  Email me a photo of what you wore your first(ish) day of school! The more art-teachery, the better! If you want to qualify to be featured in School Arts, the photo must be high resolution (so, um, not your phone). Send it on to me at cassieart75@gmail.com

* Share your look on Instagram! Don't forget to use the hashtags #schoolartsmagazine and #whattheartteacherwore and to tag me @cassiestephenz! This way we can all see what awesomeness you be wearing! 

* All photos will be shared here! In a special edition What the Art Teacher Wore (which will prolly appear after Labor Day to get all y'all late-startin' teachers a chance to enter), your good-looking face will appear here. We'll have a lil vote to see who will be featured in 

School Arts magazine and win that subscription! 

And that's it! Easy peasy, lemon squeezy. I know several of you have already shown your look on insta and I thank you! Can't wait to see what all y'all be wearing! 

School Pride Tuesday: We were to wear our school t-shirts on this day but, ya know, I don't do the t-shirt thang. So I went with our school colors of yellow and blue (with a lil red thrown in). We spent our day catching up with teacher friends and meeting new ones. I do hope all y'all teacher friends of mine love your schools as much as I love mine. scarf: vintage, thrifted; blouse: from Buffalo Exchange, vintage; skirt: another score from Buffalo, originally from Anthro; bakelite: gifts; belt: Pin Up Girl Clothing; shoes: Crocs

 Since we tend to go to Disneyland frequently, I decided to start commemorating our trips by picking up a Disney pin each visit (any excuse to spend money and start a new collection, ya'll). I've got almost a dozen now and I'm trying to think of the best way to display them all. In the meantime, I've been wearing 'em too! This is one of my faves. I grew up with a fuzzy screen, "hey, move that antenna to the left! No, right!" kind of telly so this pin brings back memories. 

 Meet Your Teacher Night! Wednesday: So our district does a lil evening gathering a couple days before school starts. This allows the kids to meet their teach, see their rooms and get the lay of the land. It's a fun night to welcome 'em all back! dress: palette dress, made by me; shoes: Shoe Carnival

 Right before Meet-Your-Teacher night, I ran to the post office. I was chatting it up with the mailman who asked, "What is it you do?" When I told him I was a teacher, he asked, "What do you teach?" I just looked at him with my best dead-eyes face and said, "Really?" After doing a double take, he was like, "oooooh, right. Art." 

 First Day of School Eve Thursday: I decided to go all Mary Blair-esque on this day. vintage dress: a lucky find on etsy; Mary Blair-inspired necklaces: made by me, DIY here; belt: Anthro; Mary Blair-inspired bag: made by me, details here

Of course that means I gotta wear my It's a Small World pin, right?! 

First Day of School! Friday: Our first day was a half day so no kids came to art. However, we did gather them all in the gym during their shortened specials time to introduce ourselves and the staff (our SRO, the principals, custodians, you get the idea) as well as cover some basic school procedures. Of course, I decided to get right to the paint, ahem, with a goofball Steve Martin-inspired crayon-thru-head headband. On third grade girl's comment: You are the weirdest thing I have ever seen. Why thank you! dress: made by me, details here; shoes: gift, Anthro

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In the Art Room: School-Wide Collaborative Series, A Village of Kindness, Part II and a Giveaway (now closed)

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.

*  Follow me on instagram (I'm addicted!) and on my Facebook page. 

*  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!

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In the Art Room: Those First Days of Art Class, 2

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.

What?! Rules are SUPER FUN to go on and on and ON about, riiiiight? That Sound Machine can be found 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!

Chat with y'all soon.

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