I was recently asked a question in Instagram about how I "deal with rude staff/teachers" at school. First of all, before I upset any coworkers, I can honestly say I work with nice folks. Really, I do. BUT I can also say that I've been at my school for MANY years now and, honestly, for many, this is what an art teacher is/looks like/acts like/does. I've trained them that all art teachers are weird/late/loud/messy rainbow unicorns. So, if they take issue, they usually shrug it off with a 'well, she IS an art teacher' as if it's an affliction I just can't correct.
They're not entirely wrong.
Anyway! When I was asked this, I promptly responded because I HAVE dealt with many a bully in my day. They have come in the form of 'friends', coworkers, staff and other art teachers. And I have actually chatted about this alot, especially here and in Episode 35 of my Cassie Stephens podcast.
Click on the photo to take you to Episode 35!
Today, though, I'm approaching the subject a little differently. Let's talk about bullying by not talking about the 'bully' but as your perspective or your Insecurity Sunglasses, I'm calling them.
You do have control over how you 'see' other people's actions and how you choose to spend your time...whether that be allowing those actions to affect you or not. Let's dig in more...you can take a listen to Episode 58 right here.
This weekend, I finished stitching a unicorn dress (fabric seen there in the background...more details on that to come!) but, alas, I didn't have any unicorn earrings to complete the look! No worries...I decided to stitch up my own. I thought I'd share the process with you.
Sewing earrings is quickly becoming my new fave thing. It's fast, easy and I work on them over the weekends when Mitch and I make our 20 minute drive to our favorite hiking spot. If we were traveling-traveling as we would normally do throughout the year, I can see this becoming my fave travel craft (easily replacing knitting!). But for now, it will have to be something I do on short road trips and at the spur of the moment when a pair of uni-earrings are needed. Here's how:
Thought I'd go ahead and share the other embroidered earring tutories I've created recently. I'm hooked!
And these, the ones that started it all. I made them on a road trip last year!
Let's create some clay stamps with left over clay! I did this at a PD at an art teacherin' buddy's school a couple of years ago and we love to use these stamps in my art room. So fun to create, here's how:
I also recently shared my favorite yarn distribution hack on my Insta
and I thought I'd share it here. I have shared this hack MANY times...
so please pardon the repeat. But it's the best way that I have found
to distribute yarn. Here you go:
I hope that helps with your yarn distribution! If you need ideas for clay or fibers lessons, be sure and check out my Clay and Fibers playlists on my YouTube channel. Be sure and subscribe, new videos are added
Here's a clay lesson I recently created for my second graders! I created a video to share the process with them and thought I'd share it with you too. Here you go:
I did change things up from the video after working with the kids...we made the heart all in one sitting. That's right, 30 minutes! We hustled! Mostly because when I did try to have them wrap the clay coils up in a plate, they were dried and too brittle the next time. The key is that the clay needs to be super soft for the kids to work with. So passing that along to you!
This lesson could easily be done with both air dry and kiln fire clay. We used kiln fire. Once fired, I will dip all of the pieces in diluted India ink, covering the piece entirely. The ink dries quickly. Then I'll pass the piece back to my students and they will use craft store metallic acrylic paints to add the color. I added holes at the top so we could hang these. I may even have them add beads to the hanger.
And in case your clay dried out before you could use it last year, I created a video on how to reconstitute that old clay. I did this process with clay that was two years old! Not fun at all...but it can be done and it's good to know when you are in need. I hope it helps!
Well, this blog post has been a long time coming, as we've been working on this What a Wonderful World mural since the start of the school year! I'm excited to say that it's complete and it's up (when it wants to stay up, sigh). You can take a tour of the mural and learn all about who made what and what lessons were involved in this video right here!
We've done SO MANY school-wide collaboratives at my school. I absolutely love them. They are also my favorite way to start the school year. I'm working on creating another blog post of all our collaboratives compiled in one post...but until then, check out the video for details and THIS podcast episode on how you can use song as a collaborative inspiration!
This mural makes me so happy and I thought it was such an appropriate song for this school year. I've gotten so much of a wonderful response from the faculty and staff (and kids!) that I'm thrilled. I mean, doing a collab like this is so much work. Especially when it comes time to assemble and hang the beast!
And here's the video if you'd like to see us in action:
One of the many reasons I like to start my school year with a collaborative is because it means we are all pretty much working with the same art supplies. In this case, we were working with bingo daubers and tempera paint...a lot!
Some of the lessons were tired and true like the first grade flowers you see at the start of this blog post. Some were new like the funny face clouds by kindergarten!
Our next mural is going to be based on our school song! I'm so glad we have a school song, it's so sweet and our students love to sing it. I think it will be perfect and hope to create a permanent display.
I got many requests from teachers for future songs....but next time I think I'd like to go with a song that the kids really know and love.
Adding the component of also learning the song in sign language was very fun and a great way to connect with our deaf friends. We have fabulous ASL teachers in our school who helped us learn the song.
Of course learning a song in a different language would be amazing too! The kids loved creating these painted plates with greetings in different languages for the mural. This was an easy early finisher activity for my students as they worked thru their paintings.
I know I'm totally oversharing in this post but I just love this mural so much! Funny face raindrops by second grade.
And I got to put it all together. Lucky me! It's okay, I love it so much and can't wait to create another! You'll have to let me know if you tackle a project like this and how it goes.
