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!

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In the Art Room: Chris Uphues Lesson for All!

 Hey, friends! A while ago, I created a Chris Uphues-inspired video for my sub to use. Because my classes are either 30 minutes in length or an hour, the video is broken up a bit. For example, as you watch, you'll see that my 30 minute kids learn about Chris and then do some sketching on dry erase boards before tackling paper. My older kids did this too...and then about 30 minutes in, met on the floor again to view the rest of the video. As I've said before, I LOVE having my students sketch on dry erase boards...it's their favorite because of the slick and forgiving surface. And it's mine as it uses less frustration and time with erasing and reworking. Here's that sub video...feel free to use it in your art teacherin' world. All I ask is that you give credit to lil ole me when you share your student's work or resources. 

Side Note: Jen and Chris Uphues are some of my most favorite folks on the planet. You'd be hard pressed to find two kinder or more down to earth people. I LOVE introducing them to my kids because I know that these are some seriously AMAZINGLY good people. And I'm super judge-y so you know I'm tellin' ya'll the true (insert winky-tongue face emoji). 

Meeting them this fall was one of the highlights of my school year!

When I initially created the lesson, I wasn't sure how I wanted the kids to finish their work...just this week did we dig the drawings back up and I started letting my early finishers work on them. All my kids are in the middle of some big projects that they all seem to finish at totaly different speeds. So this lesson has been a fun and quick in-between project. They kids love drawing these funny faces!

FOR THE FREE DOWNLOADABLE IDEA SHEETS, JUST CLICK HERE! 

FOR THE FREE HEART SHEET, CLICK HERE!

Have fun! 

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In the Art Room: Teaching Kindergarten Paint

Hey friends! Just a quick pop in to share a lil video with you. My kindergarten and first grade friends have been painting these spiral backgrounds for some pretty stinkin' adorable snowmen and penguins. I'll be certain to share a tutorial on how we made those lil dudes but today I thought I'd share a video of me explaining just how to paint these spiral lines. I got A TON of questions on my IG on how my kiddos are successful with painting such clean and fine lines. Instead of telling you all about it, here's a clip of me talking to them about it:

More to come on how we finish these masterpieces. Thank you for letting me share!

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What the Art Teacher Wore #206

 Hey, sweet friends! I hope your week was a wonderful one...mine started out so super amazing as I had a visitor all the way from Australia! Thank you so much, Belinda for hanging out with me and my students. They LOVED having you as much as I did!

Nearly all of my students were painting this week, from kindergarten through third grade. This was great because it meant low prep for me (aside from the initial painting prep which, as you know, is time consuming!). I love painting and I love teaching painting with my students. In fact, you can find out all about our supplies, set up and routines here! 

And, in case you are wondering, yes, my kids did draw all over this dress! Actually, they drew self portraits in the frames that was printed on this fabric and then I stitched it into a dress. You can find out more here. 

My third graders spent two art classes painting these large Chinet plates for their circle loom weaving project. On the first day, we reviewed painting routines and created concentric circles. On the second day, we painted patterns on our plates. These make me so stinkin' happy! I cannot wait to weave with these guys tomorrow!

My latest new favorite thing: lidded ice cube trays. I found mine on the Walmart website but they are available in lots of places. The reason I love them: they gonna keep my paints from drying out. I've tried egg cartons and regular ice cube trays...but the paint always dries. Hoping these prove to be the solution.

 Since we are all painting, I thought wearing this dress would be the safest bet! Loved chatting with the kids about how I created it. Details here. 

 My third graders are killlin' it with these plates and I'm so excited! I talk a lot about craftmanship in my art room...and you can read about that here. 

Kindergarten hopping on the Kandinsky train with these smaller cardboard circles they are painting for Dot Day. We totally didn't make the Dot Day deadline...and that's okay with me. These are so sweet!

 So I'm doing something crazy: I'm doing two different weaving lessons with my third graders! While one group is circle loom weaving, another is tree weaving. Before we could paint a landscape on our plates, we had to create two landscape painting sketches. These turned out so stinkin' pretty! Proper blog post on these to come...they will def be framed and featured in the halls soon!

 My first graders completed their HUGE 14" dots this week! I adapted a lesson that I shared here. On the reverse, we'll be doing something different than the blog post...I'll keep you posted. We will be hanging these like mobiles and I'm so stoked to see them up!

 Another day of painting, another painted dress by me. 

 After creating their two small painting sketches, my third graders had to pick their favorite to paint on their plate. I'll keep you posted on how their tree weaving goes! 

 YOU GUYS. LIKE, WHY?!

 I got a ton of questions on painting with children this week. So I did a blog post and have a podcast dropping later this week on this very topic!  

 Check out my new art teacherin' tool belt! Chrissie makes them CUSTOM to your interests! I love mine. You can find out more about Chrissie and her designs here. 

 FINALLY getting our Getting to Know You sculptures up. I meant to go in to school on Sunday and knock it out...no dice. 

Did y'all celebrate Dot Day? We did...we just didn't get everything up in time. Or AT ALL...and that's okay. I'm excited to see everything complete and on display. 

I cannot wait to share with you my sweet second grader's embroidery lesson. Stay tuned!

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In the Art Room: Painting with Children

 Recently, I've been sharing all of the painting projects my students are working on. Turns out, nearly EVERYONE is painting (except for 4th...they are SEWING, eep!) and my drying racks overfloweth. As I've been posting our projects and our painting set up, I have gotten a lot of questions...from what paint we are using to how the kids clean their brushes to how we keep out paint trays so neat (or try to). I though it would be best to share the answers in a video. This video features me teaching my kindergarten students on the very first days of painting. We cover how to properly hold a brush, how to clean our paint brush and how to keep our paint trays bright and colorful. Here you go:

I hope that helps! I find that I'm not a very strict teacher...nor am I very consistent...but one thing that I am pretty tough about: painting. Once we establish those proper painting techniques early on, we can start creating things like this:

To kick off the school year, my third graders are weaving. Some of my classes are circle loom weaving while others are tree weaving. For our circle looms, we are using large Chinet plates. On our first day, we painted concentric circles and on our second, our focus was on patterns. Keep you posted on this one...we are stoked to weave next week!

 In the past, I've always used either ice cube trays or egg cartons for paint trays. But the ice cube trays are a mess because I'm constantly covering them with plastic wrap and the egg cartons have holes and tend to leak. When I found that a friend on IG was sharing that there are ice cube trays WITH LIDS, I knew I had to get some! You can find these on Walmart...for the best deal.

 
 I mean...I just can't get enough!

 I wanted to share with you a view of my space...so you could see where are drying racks are. I have a drying rack positioned at the end of each group of two tables. This prevents my kids from roaming the room with wet paintings. I also try to keep a trash can near the racks so the kids can dispose of whateverness as they need. I don't let the kids wash their hands at the sink unless they are exceptionally messy...I have 30 minute art classes, I don't have time for that!

 Just a little peak at these landscapes created by my third graders...these will be for their tree weavings. I am loving the colors! They had to create two practice landscapes too...you can see one on the left. More to come!

What do you wear when everyone is painting? This ensemble, of course...and mismatched shoes cuz why not?! I hope the video and some tips help! Please feel free to leave questions on the comments, friends!

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