Cassie Stephens: read across america

Monday, February 26, 2018

In the Art Room: Kindergarten Alphabet Paintings

This kindergarten lesson was so fun for my students that I wanted to share! I even created a video of the process. The beginning of this video will show you how to create your own Texture Rubbing Plates with simple supplies like tagboard and hot glue! Here's the video:

I will tell you some things that I did in preparation for this lesson:

* I made a set of texture rubbing plates, about 6 for each pair of students to share. Having a variety really helped them stay engaged in this portion of the lesson.

* With the help of a fellow specials teacher, I folded the paper and created the grid. This took time but I did it well in advance and I'm so glad I did.

* When we did the alphabet, I did have "cheat sheets" for them at their tables to share with their neighbors. This way they could look at the sheet as a reference for writing their letters of the alphabet.

* I prepped the bingo daubers with ink. That's what the kids are using...and a lot of my lessons are currently filled with bingo dauber drawings. I'm addicted!

* For oil pastels, we used Sargent's florescent colors and for water color, we used Crayola's mixing colors. In the video, I am using Jack Richeson watercolor as that's what I had on hand at home.

I see my kindergarten for 40 minutes at a time. For the first class, we talked all about texture and added textures to our squares with the rubbing plates.

For our second class, we painted. This was a review as we do a lot of watercolor paint in art with kindergarten.

On our final art class, we watched a great video on YouTube of the story of Chicka Chicka Boom Boom in song form. It's so cute and the kids loved it. After that, we created two paintings. Our first being these! We simply added our alphabets to our painted papers, so pretty!

My favorite part was hearing the kids sing the alphabet song as they worked.

As soon as they finished, they placed these works of art on the drying rack and got a square paper from the store (what I call my supply gathering area). Then they painted a Chicka Boom painting of all the upper and lower case letters in a heap.

Stay tuned for what we do with these...I'll post a video and lesson right here on Wednesday!

Just loving these and cannot wait to get them up for Read Across America Week. So time to stop blogging and start hanging!

You'll have to let me know if you give this lesson a go!
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Sunday, March 4, 2012

What the Art Teacher Wore #8

Wacky Hat Day Monday: Best student comment of the day..."Taste the rainbow, Mrs. Stephens". I always do. hat: (yes, I paid money for it) amazon.com; shirt and tights: Target; vest: vintage, thrifted; skirt: etsy.com; shoes: John Fluevog

Well, hello there! Long time, no blogginess. I'm just in from an amazing trip to New York City. I was there for an art teacher convention (that's NAEA for those of you in the know) and while I'm exhausted, I'm so excited by everything that I experienced. I only have two regrets...one, I didn't get to spend more time with Lauren before she ends her student teaching stint with me. She leaves me next week! She is incredibly amazing and I am going to miss her. Sigh.

My other regret...? That I missed part of Read Across America Week! I mean, it's the one time I get to dress like a fruitloop and no one thinks anything of it. Except for the checkout lady at Kroger who asked me, "Are you going to some sort of costume party?" Erm, yeah. It happens everyday in my classroom. But it's invitation only, so sorry, sista.

Well, that's all I got for now. I'm off to unpack my treasures. More later, friends!

For Monday's school-wide morning announcements, I read The Cat in the Hat, which is a REALLY long and difficult book to read, FYI. While doing so, Lauren and my P.E. teacher buddy dressed as Thing 1 and Thing 2 and accosted me with toilet paper and other silliness. Do you see why I'll miss Thing 1?

On Lauren: Sweet little bird shirt came from Old Navy. I went out that very afternoon and bought myself one too. I'm very Single White Female like that. Belt made by Lauren. Beret courtesy of Goodwill.

I love the clever way she made her belt...it loops through the back. She so smart, she go to college and stuff.

Wear Words on Your Shirt Tuesday: Sorry, I'm not a t-shirt gal. I did unearth this artsy one from my Goodwill/restyle stash. It shows the tools to making art.collared shirt and skirt: thrifted; t-shirt: some museum shop; dotted tights: Marshall's; shoes: Clarks; hair clip: made by me

The shirt featured a pallet...and so I made this pallet hair clip to match. I was packing-procrastinating the night before, what can I say?

Lauren wrote out the ENTIRE Harold and the Purple Crayon book onto her shirt. Adorable, right?

Hello, New York Wednesday: Our convention was held at the Hilton New York which just so happened to be across the street from Rockefeller Center. dress: anthropologie; tights: Target; boots: Hunter; sweater: Urban Outfitters found at Goodwill

Meet Me at the MET Thursday: What amazing masterpieces this building holds. We spent hours digesting some of the world's most incredible art. sweater: thrifted; skirt: Free People bought at TJMaxx years ago; hat: Old Navy; boots: Hunter