In the Art Room: ART ROOM RULES!

I've been chatting alot with y'all lately about routines for the art room...and it seems kinda crazy to address that before talking about rules, doesn't it?! For the longest time...like, I'm talking YEARS, I did not understand the difference between rules and routines. There were times when I would list my rules and they'd be a mile long because they were actually procedures I wanted my kids to follow, not rules. It can all be a little confusing so let me share an analogy with you...

Your art room is the magical masterpiece of a place you wish to create for you and your students. Your RULES are the broad brush stokes of that masterpiece. The solid foundation you wish to create. Your ROUTINES are the small brush strokes, the dabs of color and light that bring your entire work of art together. With rules and routines, your art room are room has the potential to becoming everything you and your students need to create, grow and thrive. 

Now...when those rules and routines are disregarded, which can happen for any number of reasons, then there are consequences. I'll be talking more about that next week. For now, let's focus on rules. Here's mine:

Each one of these is a downloadable PDF which you can find here. In fact, you can read more about my rules by following this link.

For many years, I just came up with rules. I copied rules that other classroom or art teachers used without putting much thought into it. I hate to even admit it, but it's true. In fact, I talk a lot about it in one of this week's podcast episodes. But, incase you missed the prequel, you might wanna listen to the one on routines first. And here's my podcast episode on rules:

Before you even start thinking about your RULES and ROUTINES, shouldn't you know your WHY? I wish I had. For years I was just blindly going thru my rules, the ones I'd robbed from other folks, without giving it much thought. It was the thing I thought I had to do, get outta the way and off my To Do. Sadly, what I didn't know, is that your WHY sheds light on the tone and climate you wish to create for your art room. Starting there allows you to then shape and form your RULES and your ROUTINES. 

If you've not yet created your WHY, don't worry about it. I walk you through the process in this working podcast. I have LOVED seeing your pie charts and your WHYs...thank you so much for sharing them with me here. 

Painting my WHY was so much fun. It now hangs happily in my Command Center, right where all of my students and I can see it everyday. I talk about my WHY with my students on the very first days of art. And I ask them WHY they want to be in art...WHAT do they hope to learn, do and know. Knowing their stake in their education and owning it, gives them power. 

My rules embrace my WHY and help to bring it to life. What are your art room rules? What tone and/or climate do you hope they help your masterpiece of an art room become? 

String and Stitch Lab for Kids is...HERE!

ANNOUNCEMENT: I'll be doing a book launch at Parnassus Books in Nashville on Sunday, August 11th at 2pm. If you'd like to join the fun, please RSVP here. Let's PLEASE support our local book stores by purchasing my book at Parnassus. LOVE to see you there!

I CAN'T EVEN BELIEVE IT MYSELF...Stitch and String Lab for Kids is finally (like, FINALLY) here! And I cannot wait for you to see what's inside!

When I was a kid, fiber arts was my favorite. I didn't have art class in elementary school. So I had to get my art-makin' fix elsewhere. I learned straw weaving in Vacation Bible School. My grandma taught me how to embroider and cross-stitch. And my favorite teacher taught me how to do string art (shown above). As an adult, I've carried with me that love for fibers. When I have free time, y'all know I'm usually sewing up a dress or needle felting some wearable art. It didn't take me long to bring my love of fibers into the art room. Twenty years later...my students have experienced all forms of weaving, needle felting, wet felting, sewing, embroidery and more. I packed ALL of my favorite kid-approved lessons into this book...and I'm so happy. I want to share my love for fibers with you and your kiddos!

For that reason...I thought it would be fun to bring back the ole Facebook LIVE Craft Nights. I actually STOPPED doing FB/IG LIVES when I was so busy...writing this book. With that behind me, I'd love to get back to crafting with you. Since school is starting soon and I've got a couple other obligations happening, I can currently commit to these three dates. We'll see where we go from there. Here's the line up:

Mark your calendars and set your alarms! I'll be sharing the supply list shortly. I know if you are anything like me, if I give it to you too far in advance, y'all are just gonna forget all about it. So stay tuned here, follow me here and I'll keep you posted. 

TO CELEBRATE THE BOOK LAUNCH...I created a podcast episode just for you. Have you ever wanted to write a book? Well then I'm spilling the beans on the who, what, when, where, why and HOW in this episode:

By the way, if these photos are sparking your interest, they are projects from my book. There are 44 projects in my book...quite a bit! If you'd like to see me share more about my book and see some super easy projects for the youngin's, you can see my interview on Nashville's Talk of the Town here. 

If you do receive my book and like it, a review here would be AMAZING! You don't even know just how much a review (preferably a good one!) can mean to me. I would truly appreciate it! The amount of work that goes into making a book is bananas. So a kind word and review is a wonderful thing.

Also! I cannot forget to mention that my first book Clay Lab for Kids is also available here...and again, reviews welcome and much appreciated! 

In the Art Room: ART ROOM ROUTINES!

Remembering all of the routines I wish to cover on the very first days of art was always tough for me...especially in 30 minutes! So a while back, I created this acronym that makes sure I say it all without forgetting a thing. I created this into a downloadable pdf for you right here! 

In this week's podcast episode, I'll be sharing the story of my very first day teaching art. Spoiler Alert: it was a HUGE epic disaster! I thought rules were the only thing you covered on the very first day and, well, you'll just have to take a listen:

Last week, I got my room (mostly) set up and ready to go. I filmed a tour and will share later this week! But for now, you can sneak art room peaks here or on my Instagram!

 When I give my art room tour, I'll be sharing links to where to scoop up some of these items...but most of what you see here was made by me!

And the tutorials for what I've made can be found right here on my blog. If you just cannot wait for an art room tour, here is a peek at last year's:

But back to my routines...I have chatted about W.E.L.C.O.M.E. here...

In fact, I've got a ton of blog posts all about how I have run my first day(s) of art. I'll be chatting about this a lot more here and on my podcast so be sure to subscribe! Here are a bazillion links to videos and blog posts about my W.E.L.C.O.M.E. and my first days of school!

A Glimpse into My First Day, 2018-19

First Day of Art Class, 2018

Art Smart from the Start!

First Day of Art Class 2016-17

The Biggest Secret about being an Artist and an Art Teacher

This photo was taken my very first year teaching, in a portable, some 20 years ago. It was field day and my room was being used for the face painting station. I was 23, clueless and completely freaked out about teaching art. I'd moved 6 hours from my home in Indiana to Nashville, Tennessee without knowing a soul or having any idea what in the world I was doing. I wanted to share my journey with you in this podcast episode. I'm not going to go into too much detail here as I want you to take a listen. Think of this blog post as the visual for that episode. What I have to share took me 10 years to figure out...and changed my art teacherin' and art makin' life FOREVER.

If you like to take a listen, here you go:

I attended middle and high school in a rural school in Indiana. If you are from Indiana, I attended Northfield High School, just outside Wabash. My graduating class had something like 70 kids. It was super small and, I would NEVER have admitted it at the time, I loved that it was small. 

I was the big, weird, sassy, annoying, artsy, drama kid back in the early 90's. There weren't too many of us weirdos at the school as many kids wanted to fit in. It's human nature. I wanted to fit in too until I realized I just never was gonna. And then I started to embrace that weirdo. As seen here. 

I had the lead role in most of our small productions. I was on the speech team and traveled every Saturday to schools across Indiana reading prose, reading comedy, doing dramatic pieces. It was fun. I found my people. We were all just a buncha kids who didn't fit in but had each other. 

I was pretty confident, for the most part. I didn't mind being me.

Until I went to college. College was very hard for me, especially my freshman year. I attended Indiana University which had a student body of 30,000. Suddenly, in my mind, every kid was more creative, better at acting and public speaking and more unique than I was. I clammed up. I stopped talking to people. I began to hate myself. When was I going to be as cool and confident as I perceived the people around me to be?

And then I took an oil painting class the summer of my sophomore year. I literally fell in love. I made big messy paintings full of stories. I don't think I ever finished a single painting! But I loved making them. Suddenly I found something I felt I was good at. I had a purpose...and confidence. Again. 

While I was in the BFA painting program, I was also pursuing my art education degree. And that's where I noticed something strange.

When my painting professors found out I was also getting an ed degree, they stopped taking me seriously...after all, I was not focusing solely on my art so why should they? And my art ed professors? Well, let's just say one of them, after coming to my art showing, said I should stick to painting. She was tired of grading my lame lesson plans. 

The read-between-the-lines I was getting was that I had to pick a side. I had to choose a team. I had to figure out if I wanted to be an Artist or an Art Teacher...because, according to their message, I could NOT be both. 

In August of 1998, I took a job 6 hours from my home in Nashville, Tennessee. I became the K-2nd art teacher at Hickman Elementary. 

I had a portable classroom that was under the flight path of the Nashville International Airport. I literally had to stop talking and hang on to something every 15 minutes as planes flew overhead. I had no idea what I was doing and I was so scared of messing up. The art education of these kids depended on me and I was CLUELESS. I decided to devote all of my time and energy learning everything I could about being an art teacher. 

It was then that I decided to join Team Art Teacher. 

And I spent every moment of the next seven years reading every book, taking every class, decorating my art room, making lesson plans, doing camps...you name it. If it involved teaching art, I was all in. I was gonna be the captain of the flippin' art teacherin' team. 

And I was miserable. 

You know what a miserable person is as an art teacher? A miserable art teacher. I had neglected creating art. I had gotten so far away from my art making side and allowed myself to only focus on teaching. The face in this photo, taken when I first came to my current school about 15 years ago, says it all:

Tired. Bored. Uninspired. Uninspiring. 

I knew I had to change something. 

I knew I had to create something. 

I knew that I had to rejoin team artist...but how? How could I give up my time to my students and (selfishly, in my mind) make time for me? 

You have to, y'all. You HAVE to do both. You HAVE to be an artist and an art teacher. You'll be happy. You'll be fulfilled. You'll be what your students need. But, most of all, you'll be who YOU need. I hope you enjoy this episode...and the many more to come. 

My Experience on Nailed It!

As many of you know by now, I was on an episode of the Netflix show called Nailed It! If you've missed the episode, it is Season 3, Episode 3: Masterpiece or Disasterpiece. Over a year ago, I was contacted by Netflix to audition...and after some serious thought, I decided to give it a shot. Here's a sneak peak from the show:

Since appearing on the show, I've gotten so many questions that range from what is the audition process like, would you do it again, did you practice baking before hand, what's Wes like in real life and so much more. I decided to take all of those questions and answer them in this podcast. Here's a little taste:

The show was a tremendous amount of fun but I won't spoil it here. Click on the link below to listen to the episode in it's entirety. And while you are at it, you might want to give the other episodes a listen too. 

Episode 1: Welcome to Art Teacherin' with Cassie Stephens

Episode 2: Is this IT?! 

Episode 3: You're Hired! Now WHAT?!

Episode 4: What Teachers without Children of their Own Want You to Know

Episode 5: The Piano Story (for adult listeners only!)

Episode 6: Discovering Your Art Teacherin' Identity

Episode 7: My Experience on Nailed It!

Episode 8: Discovering Your WHY

Episode 9: The Biggest Secret about Being an Artist and an Art Teacher

Y'all might recall this dress I made last summer...what I couldn't tell you then was that it was for the show! AND what I didn't know was that they were gonna make me wear an apron the whole time, covering my dress. Dress blog post and details (with video, of course) here. 

The best fun with the best folks! I hope you enjoy watching the episode and listening to the behind the scenes details!