Well, better late than never ever, amirite? My students are just now getting rolling on their sketchbooks tho that's no fault of their own. I've been doing sketchbooks with my kids for years now ... and had a pretty fool proof way that worked for me and the kids. But there was always one thing kind of bothering me...that I never had a way for them to add informational pages to their sketchbooks. You know, like an Elements of Art reference sheet or, what I'm really excited about, some Art History Rocks sheets. So this year, instead of using manilla folders with pages stapled inside, my kids are using pronged folders that we can add pages to! Because my students are working on their weaving and sewing projects right now, they are all finishing their work at different speeds. While allowing time for the kids to finish AND providing my early finishers with a quality drawing lesson, I created this sheet. It worked GREAT! My students drew lightly with pencil first on their folders then showed me their drawing before going over their lines in pencil. If you'd like this sheet, you can download it here.
This is the work of a couple third graders after they finished their weavings. They were so stinkin' proud of their work! The ABC sheet is one I found online. You can find it here along with a great video.
For the background, we looked at the work of Jen Stark and talked about creating a repeating line pattern. The kids chose a line and simply repeated it in any way they liked. Again, they were working independently so lots of options were open to them. color was added with markers. The kids are so proud of their covers so far. They'll continue adding to these as an early finisher project. I CANNOT WAIT to introduce them to our first Art Rocks theme and get them rockin' in these books. Stay tuned!
As y'all might recall from my last post, my kindergarten is in the middle of what I'm calling Rainbow Bootcamp. We've been learning the order of the colors in the rainbow in many ways...always kicking off our lesson with my very favorite They Might be Giants song Roy G. Biv.
Well, next week is Spirit Week for our Scholastic Book Fair at our school. What that means is each day this week, we are dressing up in accordance with the theme for the book fair. The theme is Enchanted Forest...which has made for some very interesting dress up days. One of them being "Dress like a Gnome or a Fairy Day". Now. At first I was like "wait, whut?! What in the world am I supposed to dress like on that day?!"
Oh. Duh.
Making this costume was so easy that I thought I'd share the process. The supplies I picked up at the craft store where:
Martha Stewart plates at Michaels! Those were used to create my prism wand. I sandwiched a dowel rod between two plates with some hot glue and viola!
Dowel rod
Fabric for the beard
Quilter's batting for the beard
Elastic or a ribbon to tie the beard
Poster board for the hat
Sparkle rainbow adhesive foam for the hat
Lemme tell you, I was not looking forward to making the prism...I initially had a foam block and a lot of glitter in my cart. But when I saw those Martha Stewart plates, I thought those would be so much easier to assemble! Also...I started out with sparkle ribbon for the hat. But each roll was $5 and that was getting expensive. Turns out the adhesive glitter foam was much better and, at only a $1 a sheet, much cheaper.
I'll keep you posted on how the kiddos react! Oh! AND for the rest of the outfit: overalls and top from Forever21; socks from Sock It to Me; clear boots from my bestie!
This week, I took my lil kindergarten friends on a trip to Rainbow Bootcamp! We watched the Roy G. Biv video by They Might be Giants (on YouTube and every bit of awesome!) and then we dived in to painting our very own rainbows. Here's a clip of the lesson I shared with my students:
I have 30 minute art classes with my little friends. This was how I introduced painting rainbows with tempera cakes on that very first day. My kindergarten friends have been painting up a storm with watercolor, tempera paint and now tempera cakes! I like to use Alphacolor's Biggie Cakes for tempera. They have all the colors EXCEPT purple...which I show the kids how to make by painting a second blue stripe and painting red on top.
By the time our second 30 minute art class rolls around, we are ready to add our sky. We use chalk for this portion and learn how to blend the chalk in. So much fun! Next up, we'll create clouds and a sun to finish off these masterpieces.
We wouldn't be learning about rainbows without some wild and crazy ensembles. Stay tuned to how this lesson progresses! SIDE NOTE: For some reason, many of my videos are being hidden on my channel under "restricted mode". I have no control over this and YouTube ain't gonna do nothing about it because, honestly, they don't care. So, if you are unable to see some of my videos, try turning off restricted mode on your device and you'll be able to view a ton. Sorry for the inconvenience! Thanks for understanding.
Teaching kindergarten is currently my most favorite thing. Maybe it's this particular group, maybe it's because I've finally caught up to being just as crazy as they are...I dunno but I do like it. I've been sharing a lot of videos of myself teaching kindergarten (as well as those older kiddos) on my Instagram but I'm limited to only sharing one minute clips. I thought it would be fun to share the longer version here. I LOVE watching other teachers teach...and I have a feeling you might feel the same. I always learn SO MUCH! I also learn SO MUCH from recording and watching myself (1. I talk too much and 2. I talk too much). I totally recommend you give it a shot. Several of my classes were learning about Vincent this week and I thought I'd record my intro...so, here you go!
If you enjoy this video, you can find more like it on my YouTube channel. I'll keep you posted on how our lesson progresses!
Howdy, friends! If you live in the Tennessee area than you know what a wet and wild week we had! I like to thought it was NEVER gonna stop raining. Which means to outdoor recess for the kids...and it was full moon week. Regardless, we were rockin' through our paintings, embroidery, weaving and sewing projects this week and I couldn't be more excited about the progress the kids are making. We also got to meet a new friend to the art room this week: Our Monster from Cotton Monster Jen!
Last week, I had the chance to see my mom who had picked up for me some fun things for my art room: these floats! I'm using them as "flexible seating" for my third graders as they weave.
They were in heaven. So that folks who wanted to sit in the floats could have a turn, I set a timer for every five minutes. I also have a small fort, beach chairs and plenty of pillows for them to pick from. We played music and it was a regular weaving party! If you'd like to learn more about circle loom weaving, check out my blog posts with video.
Even if I did look like a crazy person walking down the halls with these bad boys. I literally couldn't fit through my door!
Since my students are involved in fiber arts projects right now, I'm thrilled to introduce them to Jennifer Strunge. This isn't the first time I've shared her work with my kids. You can see our Monster Sewing Project (with video!) here. We are voting on his name next week after brainstorming tons of ideas! Will keep you posted.
Another thing my mama got for me? This hilariously inappropriate and yet so appropriate t-shirt. The kids had a big laugh over that one.
While my third graders are weaving, my fourth graders are sewing. Some are sewing pizza pillows, donut pillows or, in this case, emojis! I'm hoping to have these complete by this coming week...ready to move on, y'all! Lesson details to come.
My first graders are wrapping up their reversible dot paintings. This is a revamp of a lesson I did years ago with my second graders...I love this project! I'll be creating an updated blog post about this and what we did differently super soon. I purchased the cardboard pizza rounds from Gordon Food Services but you can also found them on Amazon.
Did y'all know I like rainbows? What was the first clue...?
Two of my second grade classes are stitching right now...and totally rocking it. They finished them off this week and they were so proud of themselves. Lesson details to come. I love stitching with kids.
I think the best part of this week was seeing so many projects finally coming to fruition. It's been WEEKS and I'm so excited for these young artists.
