Preparing For A New School Year!

There may in fact be nothing more exciting than the beginning of a brand new school year! Our school theme this year is illustrated above and there are lighthouses leading the way all over the building! It is clear that all of us teachers have “sharpened the saw” and are ready to get to work. Although school officially starts this Tuesday, the teachers have been busy this week preparing and planning. I wanted to give you all a classroom tour and share a few new routines that I will be implementing this year.

First of all I have to give a HUGE shout out to Pinterest! Pinterest is a website that is such a great resource for people to share creative ideas. As for teachers, it allows us to explore different classroom organization techniques and awesome lessons. I promise you that you will see a lot of my Pinterest inspiration on this blog throughout the year… starting now! J Below are all Pinterest inspired projects that I have been working on in my classroom this week. 

You can't have color without light... the light from the lighthouse of course! J 

 I created these BES crayons from cardboard tubes and bulletin paper.

This year I decided to try out expectations instead of rules. I believe these fit perfectly in the BES art room and help to build upon the sense of community.

Last year I learned my lesson spending almost a whole 5 minutes passing out papers and trying to figure out who the no namers were. Hopefully these stop signs help me spread the word... write your name! 

No more water puddles on the counters and floors this year... hopefully! These little dots that represent go, slow and stop help organize the students at the sink who are washing their hands at the end of class. This way there are not three people at one sink having fun playing in the water! 

Love this idea here! Each picture frame is labeled with a grade level and allows me to write the daily objectives/I can statements on them with a dry erase marker. This keeps the goal for each class session clear and students are able to better assess their understanding at the end of class.

Isn't this the truth? Especially when you only get 45 minutes of art once a week!

Which brings me to this sign that is posted outside of my door. "Thank you for using the restroom and water fountain before art!". This reminds students that our time is very valuable and to make sure they are able to take advantage of every minute! The other resource teachers could feel my pain and now have a similar sign posted outside of their rooms as well!

See, isn't Pinterest great?! Now here are some of my own creative ideas...

Here is the new and improved art room for the 2012-13 school year! I can not take total credit for the new look of the tables, however. These tables have been here ever since I went through here which means they sure are durable... but they sure are NOT aesthetically pleasing. More than anything they are incredibly hard to keep clean! So instead of spending bunches of money on new tables, I covered them with bulletin paper to spice them up a little. Then I went to Joannes fabric store and bought this plastic material by the yard. I received the plastic covering idea from another amazing art teacher in the county who does this each year. She says they are super easy to keep clean and so far I am happy with them! It definitely makes a huge difference to the eye!

Here is the new clean up routine! We have an artwork collector, supply guy, table inspector, and floor inspector. Each seat is labeled with a color that corresponds to the job colors. The job titles have Velcro and I am able to rotate them so that the next time the class comes in everyone has a new job to be responsible for. I believe this system will help to foster more responsibility in the art room. 

On these cabinets the students will be able to find their grade level and look at visuals that correspond to their specific unit/lesson they are learning. This way they can be proactive in finding answers to their questions during their independent process time. I haven't gotten to actually putting up the visuals yet but hey... that's okay!

And last but not least, the bulletin! I decided to do an artist of the month type of thing here using the lighthouse theme. The artist for the month of September is Chuck Close. If you are not familiar with him please look up his work! He is amazing and you might get a little hint as to what the first week school-wide collaborative project will be!! J

Reminiscing

As I begin this new blog with the 2012-13 school year on the horizon, I can't help but think about the wonderful first year teaching I had last year. I learned so much about myself as an art educator and really got to know all of my students and their abilities as well. Therefore I am dedicating this post to the first art project we did together last year.

I wanted to do something collaborative to teach the students that wonderful things happen when we all work together. I also wanted to give them a little art history at the same time to get them used to my style of teaching.

Our school theme for the year last year was "Beaverdam is on a Quest for Learning" so I wrote out block letters for the slogan "Lets Quest to get Art Smart!" and cut them into puzzle pieces. I talked about patterns with kindergarten and first graders and then gave each student a puzzle piece to color with different patterns.

Second graders learned about the artist Andy Warhol and we talked about cool and warm colors. I had drawn the outline of Warhol's famous Campbell's Soup can and cut them into puzzle pieces. Each child got a piece and had to find the warm colors in their markers and use them to complete their puzzle piece.

Third grade learned about Pablo Picasso and the still life genre through his "Bowl and Pitcher" still life artwork. They also learned about cool and warm colors and had to pick out the cool colors in their oil pastels to fill in their puzzle piece. 

Fourth grade had it a little more difficult because with theirs I did not do a pre-drawing. They learned about the artist Vincent Van Gogh and his famous Starry Night painting. I cut up their puzzle pieces as well as the famous artwork and they each got a piece of the artwork. They had to look at their piece of the artwork and carefully replicate it onto their paper puzzle piece. This taught them the importance of observation and planing. 

Fifth grade learned about Leonardo da Vinci's "Mona Lisa". They also had a piece of the artwork and had to replicate it free hand onto their paper puzzle piece. I taught them how to blend oil pastels to create skin tones. Again, they learned the skill of observation and careful planing. *A student was absent that day so I demonstrated the facial part of this piece... can ya tell?  ;)

This first project of the 2012-13 year was very successful and fun! Within 45 minutes I was able to introduce myself as their new art teacher and teach an actual lesson with a wonderful outcome! I am looking forward to the collaborative art project that I have planned to kick off the 2012-13 school year!