Happy Break!

from my snowman makers to you...

only 3 are mine... the other 3 are my nieces and nephew.

Channeling the Spirit of Christmas

So I have a slight (okay HUGE) admiration for Cassie Stephens and her amazingly bold and wonderful wardrobe...

Today I channeled my inner CS and wore a "real deal tree skirt" skirt.  The kids loved it.  It was awesomely fun.  Thanks Cassie for the inspiration!

Clay Looms

While my student teacher was here she wanted to tackle clay.  I linked her to my clay Pinterest board and shared that the students needed to do a slab project in 5th grade.  We also discussed that texture was the element of art we were focusing on. She found this pin/idea from Phyl at There's a Dragon in my Art Room and her lesson was born...

One modification she made was to take away the weaving component.  Time and materials didn't really allow for it this year.  She did a great job of teaching them the lesson, tracking students who were absent, firing 300+ pieces, finishing, grading and uploading the images.  

We discussed the different ways the students could finish the pieces and decided that having them "stain" them in a watery paint bath would be best.  It would allow the students time to finish all their yarn work during one class period.  Without further ado... here are some of the final projects:

We did a different color each day of the week.  Some students really loved the weaving component on the example projects and decided to challenge themselves.  They turned out really nicely. 

You can check out more over at Artsonia. 

The Secret's Out

I have been super excited to yell this from the rooftops but had to wait till the right time.

Well today is the day.

I am now a contributing writer to the the ART OF EDUCATION!

See... that's my name highlighted

Wow!  I still need to give it time to soak in.  I have been following AOE f-o-r-e-v-e-r!  Like since back when it was just Jessica and back when I typed the address in each time because I didn't have a blog reader.

They have always, always been a great source of amazing information.  Over the last few years it has really morphed into a leading online source for art teachers.  They cover everything art ed and work really, really hard to fulfill their tag line "ridiculously relevant professional development for art teachers."

If you haven't checked out their online conferences I would really, really recommend them.  You get to sit at home, in your jammies, sipping coffee (or whatever you like) while learning a TON of awesomeness for your classes. The next one is coming quickly in January so head over and read my article about one day clay projects... then check out the conference information.