A working mom's contribution

My daughter's kindergarten class is having a Thanksgiving party today.  They needed someone to lead the craft project and NO ONE came forward.  Well I couldn't do it as I had to be at school today (some legal rule about not being gone the day before or after a school break).  I felt bad... so I solved the problem in my own way...

I made a video of me teaching the lesson.  

So I am leading the craft project...but I am just not actually there to do it! 

I hope it works out!  

Enjoy it...

I saw this posted on facebook last night.  

It was the greatest!

I hope you enjoy it.

(due to language it is not good for schools.... just for art teacher's souls!)

EPIC RAP BATTLE 

Bob Ross vs. Pablo Picasso

Update...

A while back I posted about Alex and all the great things he has been up to.

I just had to show you his finished windmill:

Elements of Art Organizer

This is a direct steal that is toooooo awesome not to share.

Mrs. Impey over at Art Room 104 posted this great post about an elements of art graphic organizer and I knew it was exactly what I was looking for.  

My 6th graders started the year (yeah this is another catch up post) creating these graphic organizers.  I gave them detailed typed out notes and they could create their own definition or copy mine.  I loved how they reviewed the elements of Art and provide my students with an easy reference for the rest of the year. 

and a close up of some notes

I will be putting this in my "use again" file.  Thank you for sharing Mrs. Impey!

Finally...

I was feeling a little (okay... completely) overwhelmed at school.
So.... 14 hours later, life is better!  The room is cleaned up, the stuff is put away, the markers are sorted, the next projects are ready to go.  Now I can breath!

So to update you on something I mentioned a LONG time ago... Collage Bugs!

My 6th graders first assignment was to create a watercolor and collage bug image that reflected the knowledge of the elements of art.  In my previous post I talked about my frustrations with the assignment but in the end there were some really AWESOME solutions.

Some of my favorite parts are:

a giant locust

a human bug

3-D Butterfly

See through wasp wings

this bee is amazing!

I love the tree's texture!

check out more at Artsonia.com

My "Real" Room

The blog "Teaching with Grace" challenged us to show off our REAL classroom.  "This Old Art Room" shared the challenge so I am passing on my real room:

Have a great weekend!  

I am taking an art class and can't wait!

One of my favorite things...

Awhile back I posted about clay.

Today we started finishing our clay projects.  I have to say that I love this part.  I especially love "staining" our clay projects.  The magic of it all is awesome. Read here to know more about it.

Today they started with getting their projects back, oil pastel'n the details and then staining them.  It was magical fun!

Here are some pinwheels from the first two classes:

Here are some trivets:

Check out Artsonia to see them all. 

a completely unproductive productive day!

I love my Wednesdays...

With our schools schedules I am blessed with 3 plan periods on Wednesday... because I don't have full plan periods any other day.  They are my rockstar days when I get so much done (which is awesome since I feel more behind than ever this year).  This morning I walked into the house from my 5:15 a.m. exercise class and my husband met me with, "J is puking and I have that huge job lined up today." (translation: you are going to have to take this one.)  So I called the sub service, ran up to school and got everything ready.

My day was awesomely productive at home (a sick 8 year old doesn't require much work... just some peanut butter toast and tea from time to time).  I did 4 loads of laundry.  I pulled wallpaper off 1/3 of our bedroom wall (whomever put it up really liked their wallpaper paste).  I cleaned one of the storage closets (this house has like 4 of them) and started putting things away.  I made lunch, supper and kept a 2 year old entertained.

My school day was absolutely unproductive (note 2 year old from above).  I am working on catching up from home and will head in early tomorrow morning but I thought I should share what the sub did with my kiddos' today.  Thanks to Artsonia's Classroom I was able to see what the kids were completing and uploading throughout the day.

The sub (a former student teacher) was introducing them to atmospheric perspective and they were to use changing values and details to create an image on the paint program.  Here are a few of  what I was expecting:

and a few of them I still love even though I think they could use a little more detail in the foreground.

Anyone else thinking of a lava lamp...

this one makes  my eyes go crazy...

This students artist statement shared that this one makes her think of the Lion King when they enter the elephant graveyard... love it!

I am trying to decide what is up front... and I love that!

Check out more of them at Artsonia.

COLOR WHEELS

or is it 

colar wheells 

or

colerwehls

or 

coller weels

Wow!  I am so glad I am not an English teacher. I have spent the last two days creating color wheels in the computer lab with my 5th graders.  Part of their assignment is to upload through artsonia and write an artist statement.  We talked about what they should look like and I showed examples of good and bad artist statements.  But I wasn't prepared for what I was about to get:  

holymiss.pelled run one sentences batman! most of mystudents must knot hve listennned about punctuation capitaLization or that fact that u is not a word and i am important enough to bee a I. 

Don't get me wrong, we have AMAZING English teachers in our district but I can see how texting and spell checking have affected our writers.  

But onto happier news. 

The color wheels are turning out awesome.  Some of the kiddo's are struggling with the yellow orange, orange, red orange transition but most are rocking them.  

You can check out more of them (and my somewhat spell checked artist statements) at ARTSONIA

...and you can try to guess what I demonstrated during class.

(It was the 6 pointed star)

A fun one to share...

Yesterday was the first snow of the year...

it was the wet, clumpy, slushy sort of snow that was on rooftops in the morning but gone by 9 am.  

Today is just the cold, damp day after.

Therefore we are making BEAUTIFUL, LONG LASTING snowflakes today in art class!

I stumbled upon the Make-a-Flake site 

and knew it would work perfect for those kiddo's who finished their Bruce Gray images early.  

my example

The kiddo's love making them, remaking them, cutting more and exploring this project.  It is a really neat site!

I am having the kiddo's upload them artsonia (using their awesome artsonia.com/class).

and I am thinking they could make a fun project for exploring picassa... look at what I created in a few clicks and a few minutes.