In the Art Room...#18-Ice Cream Rainbows & Printmaking

Good news is this short week is over and June is here! The bad news is it's dress season for me and I don't carry my phone on me as much. This means less photos😞. Since we are visual people this can be a slight problem. I'm going to try harder next week...I promise. 

Kindergartners painted their ice cream cones this week. I had my first class put black around them and it wasn't so successful. The black was uneven and needs to be touched up. The other two classes will not paint their backgrounds. 

5th graders started printing this week. We are using foam instead of rubber stamps this year. I taught them how to make reduction prints and they thought that was pretty cool. Reduction printing wouldn't have been possible with rubber stamps. Note: techincally it would be but the point of a rubber stamp is permanence. That is lost when you do reduction prints, a one time printmaking process. 

And that's it for photos! Other art room events include 

1-Getting kicked out of the art room for NYS science test on Tuesday & Wednesday. 

2-4th graders are making their looms for wampum belts and designing a high contrast pattern for them. 

3-1st grade finishing Rousseau jungles and a class falling behind because of a field trip. 

4-2nd grade writing and typing their royalty stories. 

5-My week long practicum student got to witness the entire crazy week. I think he has seen the gamut! 

So next week I will take more photos or wear my dresses with pockets or get a fanny pack. 

In The Art Room #17...Ice Cream Cones and Jungle Animals!

Let's just say this was a verrrrry long week. I am going to sum this week up really fast because we have a 3 day weekend and I need to turn my brain off! 

We worked on cutting and gluing with my pre-k kiddos. We made these cute lil flags using 9x12 white, 6x9 red (they cut their own strips) and 4.5x6 blue. So there is no waste when prepping this one. 

Field trips began this week so I worked my way through some piles of projects that needed to be graded. 

It was soooo humid Monday! I spent my planning taking down all non essential artwork because they were falling off the walls. They even felt damp. Then I recruited some 6th grade helpers to help me sort and organize it. 😄

Trying a new color wheel project with kindergarten. I've done birds in the past but that is usually around the spring. Since it's the end of the year I decided to go with ice cream. So far so good, next week we will paint!

5th graders started their typography prints!

One class has squeaked ahead on the Henri Rousseau Animal project. This group made leaves and tissue paper backgrounds on Monday. Friday we collaged all the parts together! 

Whew! So there is my super quick recap! Happy Memorial Day! 

In the Art Room...#16-Final Countdown!!

The end is near! We have 6 art classes left, we are finishing up are last project and beginning our final projects of the year. 

4th graders are on the final day of their recycled crayon project. I have the good fortune of having a stove in my room. It's basically a giant crayon maker. I have collected several shaped tins over the years and students melt crayons in those. We come up with a company name and work in some color theory so our crayons don't color brown. 

The rest of the students are finishing up projects and starting their last ones. I try to save the best for last so students remain engaged in the projects until the end! 

3rd graders are adding the finishing touches to their portraits. We used iPads to search a background. Students could put themselves anywhere as long as it had a horizon line. The are getting so creative with these. This student is using oil pastels and and then watercolors to create outerspace.

During the half days I had students make mandalas and watch a time lapse video of Buddhists monks making one. 5th graders were really into this and wanted to make them out of sand. I had colored sand so we spent another day making them out of sand and glue. 

4th graders are on the final day of their recycled crayon project. I have the fortune of having a stove in my room. It's basically a giant crayon maker. I have collected several shaped tins over the years 

Once the 5th graders were done with mandalas we started designing our stamps. 5th graders use safety cut linoleum to create a letter stamp (first initial of their first name). We learn about printmaking and fonts & typefaces. 

This first grader thought his scrap paper was hilarious. So did I. 

Kindergarteners are finishing up their life size portraits. I love how they transform themselves with the Playcolor Tempera Sticks. The colors are so rich and bright, they look amazing! 

Whew! So there it is, a week in the life of an art teacher (who forgets to photograph most of our projects.) 

How many more weeks do you have? Have you started the final countdown? 

In the Art Room...#15-Self Portraits, Owls and a Fire

This is gonna be a quick share this week. 

We had parent teacher conferences on Thursday, half day on Friday and more conferences on the upcoming Monday. 

Second graders are wrapping up their

Royal Self Portriats using water colors. 

The final countdown *cue music* began Monday. I have 8 scheduled classes with everyone remaining. This will become 7,6 or 5 depending on field trips, picnics and assemblies! 

Our principal had an ice cream truck stop by after school on Monday for teacher appreciation week!! 

3rd graders are researching backgrounds for their self portraits. They can make a real or imaginary place as long as they use a horizon line to create ground and sky. They are coming up with some wonderful ideas!

I got the Fun With Glass Projects up on display from our Corning Trip. The ornaments were a pain to hang and keep slipping so they had to come down. 

Kindergarteners started their clothes on their shirts. We use Playcolor tempera sticks. These things are amazing!!! 

 

These are the birds I am doing with 2nd graders on our half days. We have 35 minutes and I like to do a separate project on these days. We will glue these to blue paper and make branches and feet!

I wasn't in school on Thursday. Wednesday evening I got a terrible phone  call from my mother saying my sister's apartment building caught on fire. 

That's her black car and apartment in the center of the photo. Fortunately she has a first floor apartment. The second floor apartments were a total loss. We spent Wednesday night and Thursday trying to get a grasp on what happened and what to do next. We are waiting to hear from the fire investigators on when we can go into the building, they guess it will be late next week. She is staying with my husband and I for the remainder of the year and commuting to work. If anyone would like to help we started a GoFundMe page to get her back on her feet. http://www.gofundme.com/tyuw4m5n

Any donation is greatly appreciated! 

In the Art Room...#14 First Field Trip and Busy Bags!

The weeks are getting longer here. That means that spring is in the air and we are in our final stretch!! We had a pretty exciting week over here, most importantly a very successful first field trip! 

Monday was a half day. We had the afternoon to work on our report cards. Since my grades aren't due until 40 weeks, I graded some clay projects and photographed slab boxes too. 

We got a good laugh outta this accidental target butt on her whistle.

Working on a new project- Royal Portraits. Spent the second day making crowns, hair and painting our skin colors. I used Reeves flesh tint in the tube and give the kids brown to mix in if they want.

Then it was time for field trip prep. I won the Target Field Trip Grant this year and I was taking 30 4th, 5th and 6th graders to Corning Museum of Glass.

Corning is 2.5 hours away. On a school bus... I had to give them something to keep them entertained.  I made busy bags for the field trippers. I gave them paper for thank you cards, snacks, name tag label, life savers, twizzlers, crackers, pipe cleaners, mechanical pencils and a note from me. I also brought dry erase boards, markers and pom poms. It worked pretty well.

Despite the 5 hour drive we spent a good portion of it along Cayuga Lake, one of the Finger Lakes. It was a beautiful day for a trip! So what did we do?

Students made their own blown glass ornaments!

Fused glass sun catachers!

Sand Blasted Drinking Cups!

A guided tour!

A hot glass demo!!

 And one of students won it!!

And that is the quick version of the trip! This card won best card. It was for our bus driver, Brad. It was a super success, no one got lost or threw up (both wins in my book!) I would definitely do it again. I would leave a little earlier and stay a lot longer! 

Back at school we painting our shoes!! Students have the choice of painting the bottom of their sneakers and stamping them on the soles of their self portraits...which I don't have a picture of. Ugh.

1st graders made some orange for their tigers and lions. This is a base coat, more details will be added next class.

In other news I have been busy making tons of mugs in the studio! I have a show today at the Salt Market that is being held at St. Clare Theater in Syracuse!