Hall Displays are Up and Running

While I love the "newness" of a new school year, I'm a typical artist/hoarder and dislike the blank blank walls.  I try to get student work up as soon as I can (and I've already taken some things down and replaced with another grade level).  Here's what the halls in my school look like now, on the sixth week of school:

Construction paper 'flips,' fifth grade, Matisse inspired.

Color wheel clowns, first grade.

George Caleb Bingham inspired landscape paintings, fourth grade.

More landscapes, I love the color mixing on the bottom left.

More construction paper flips, and
some kindergarten Mondrian lines further down the hall.

Dairy Delight Dogs, second grade

Lascaux inspired cave paintings, third grade

I've been trying to keep up with kindergarten, and we're doing color scheme giraffes.  When I was gluing them together to get ready to hang, I noticed this:

I don't know that I've ever seen a more prime example of a reason to re-teach  a concept in my life.  Good thing I've got six and half more years with them to get them to understand primary and secondary colors. 

Is It Procrastination? Or Perfectionism?

Teachers in my district reported back today for meetings and work time.  I spent my time changing out hallway displays (which needed to happen) and avoiding doing the things I need to do for our artist of the month program (choosing/hanging/writing the letters--all still needs to happen before I can leave today).  I took down first grade landscapes and put up first grade owls:

We did our owls similarly to previous years, except our backgrounds were warm-colored-crayon leaf rubbings with black paint over.

I had decided to do a cute little Leader In Me connection on this board because it's the one that every child who rides a bus sees (all 700-800 of them).  The spacing of the letters drove me NUTS, so switched some around, leaving a gap, so I had to go find another owl from another class to fill the void:

Much better! Now, what can I find to avoid doing the artist of the month stuff that needs to be done in the next 45 minutes??? Wait! That one on the far right needs to be adjusted. . . can someone else do artist of the month for me this month????

Where Have I Been All This Time?

I keep deciding to blog, what to blog . . . but I'm so busy.  I've had more to prepare for my classes lately, more knitting/crocheting to do for my yarn bombing, I'm trying to finish a quilt I started 16 years ago (because it seems so important to finish it right now, this second).

So what are my students up to?  Sixth grade finished some cityscapes and are working on a new project inspired by this artist, fifth grade is starting some printmaking  Andy Warhol inspired soup cans, fourth grade is working on Thomas Hart Benton style murals, third grade is working on radial symmetry,

second grade is busy making the calendars I tend to do every year, first grade just started these amazing chalk-and-paint insects, 

(we still have details to add) and kindergarten is trying to finish up some Wild Things.

I'm frantically trying to keep a healthy work/home balance (who does that well? Unicorns? Because everyone I know is always trying to do it better).

So I guess all this to say, I'm still around.  Still teaching, just not blogging as much as I probably should.

Squeezing in a Clay Project at the Last Minute

Oh MY, I barely got this one worked in! My third graders made architectural columns out of clay.  This lesson came from the February 2010 Arts & Activities issue, and the lesson was originally by Robin Leenhouts.  It's a perfect fit for my third graders who spend their year learning the basics of art history.  I had a handout on doric, ionic and corinthian columns for students to reference.  Here are a few bisque fired pieces:

The beauty of these is that they work either way, open side up as a pencil/pen holders, or base side up as pedestals for favorite toys. (I'm obviously not a real stickler for accuracy--note the placement of the ionic swirls)
Students painted them with metallic tempera blocks and then sealed the paint with Mod Podge:

The final painting/sealing day was so crazy that I didn't get many photos, but they really did turn out nicely.  
Speaking of, look at this first grade portrait from my Jewelry Portraits lesson:

He wasn't here the last day to finish and add his necklace. OH MY GOODNESS! Have you EVER seen anything more adorable?  It looks just like him! I love it and plan on keeping it FOREVER!
And also this from first grade:

This is how it went down:
"Mrs. Fresia, I'm making bacon and eggs!"
"That sounds perfect!"
"Well, I decided to make them for you!"
They're amazing.  And I wish I would've photographed the paper heart I got from the same class that looks more like marshmallows smooshed together.
No better job in the world (and if you don't think it is, it's probably not the job for you, because really, the only people who need to spend all day everyday with kids are the ones who really want to be there).
For those of you still in school, summer is really, really REALLY close.  For those already on vacation: enjoy every single minute, YOU DESERVE IT!

Why YES, That IS a 59 Foot Giant Squid

Welcome to Crazy Town! I know we ALL say it this time of the year, but everything's a little nutso (state testing, the weather, allergies, the end of the year . . . ) and my strategy is always to just run far far away join in.  So, HELLO, fifty nine foot squid! 

To begin this project, first graders drew an animal that lives in the ocean on a 6 x 9" piece of paper with pencil, then (once approved/drawn big enough) that piece of paper was taped onto a 6 x 9" piece of styrofoam for printing. They traced over their drawings, making grooves in the foam that they traced again.  Once it was all traced, a new/fresh paper (with name on the back) was taped to the foam and it was time to break out the Payons (if you don't have boxes and boxes and boxes of these that you're trying to use up, watersoluble oil pastels work as well) and started printing:

I did emphasize to them that they needed to work rather quickly, doing small parts at a time and print before the color dried on their foam.  This also allowed them the opportunity to use any/all colors.  Did they run a bit? Yep! Does it matter? NOPE, this is underwater, friends, so we need that blurry look! Don't forget to brandish the paper:

No idea why she has a drawing on the back where her name should be,
but trust me, she's brandishing that paper!

We printed for a few art class times, then read I'm the Biggest Thing in the Ocean by Kevin Sherry and looked at some stats on National Geographic.  Did you know that the biggest giant squid ever seen/captured (in Japan) was fifty nine feet long?  That's hhhhuuuuuuuggggggeeeeee! To figure out how really big that is, I took one class of first graders in the gym to use the 12" tiles to measure it out with big roll paper.  No photos of this because with 22 first graders in the gym with giant rolls of paper, scissors, and crayons I had no time for photography. And I also decided at this point that ONE giant squid was enough for all three of my first grade classes.

So, students spent several art times printing away, then choosing one or two prints to take home and leave the rest with me to glue to a giant squid:

What do you think? Four-ish feet down, 55 more to go?

Of course, some students "got it" more than others, but still they're so pretty:

Now to find some wall space for a 59' squid . . . and distract myself from summer vacation that's still not here yet.

Texture Monster Building Fun

As promised, here is a post about my latest second grade lesson.  

For the past several years, I've started second grade out by talking about texture.  We write this definition in our sketchbooks: texture is the way something feels or looks like it would feel.  This year, after defining texture and drawing as many things as we could think of that have texture in our sketchbooks, we spent the next class period fingerpainting.  I have this huge box of donated paper that feels like fingerpaint paper to me, so that's what we use.  I was in my first-weeks-of-school-how-do-I-even-function funk at that point, so there's no photos of this step (plus the whole one adult/25 fingerpainting second graders thing).  My fingerpainting expectations are these--one paint hand, one clean hand.  And 3-4 paper towels per student.  I put a blob of paint on the middle of their paper, remind them "one paint hand, one clean hand" and move to the next student.  Students paint away with one hand, wipe their hand as clean as they can with the paper towels when finished then wash their hands while I put their papers in the drying rack.
The following class period I gave them back their dry paintings and had them feel the bumpy texture and cut the white off.  These blobs are the bodies of their texture monsters.  I got out the scrap box and random papers and demonstrated different ways to make texture with paper.  We talked about how monsters aren't real, so anything goes as long as it had texture.  When I turned them loose to work on their own I got this wonderfulness:

So scaly and pokey!

 So we spent a few days working on our monsters, and the final work day, we added speech bubbles:

And then I hung them in the hall.  I love that they're all so completely different and unique.  So adorable and wonderful!  SO hard to hang on that little tack strip:

Speaking of the halls, I also hung up some color-mixing clowns that first grade did:

So much fun!  Every school needs more kid paintings!

Sometimes You Just Forget

With the school year well under way, it's just amazing to me how fast my day goes.  Every minute is busy, and the students are so funny and interesting and exhausting/exhausted (I just love those exhausted kindergarteners the first weeks of school).  My schedule is sooooo much easier than the past few years (when I had adaptive art or traveling to another building, then plan time, then eight classes with a 20 minute lunch).  This year I have my plan time with my lunch, giving me time to regroup and focus.
As for projects, I'm doing modified sketchbooks this year (half the size) with sixth grade from a lesson I blogged about last year.  Fifth grade started a unit on Pop Art, so we're having fun with Lichtenstein and Warhol (I'll blog on those as we're working, so look for some posts), fourth grade is working on Emily Carr landscapes, third grade is busy with their cave "paintings", second grade is studying texture and making monsters that are looking AH-MAZING (blog post coming soon for that one too), first grade finished their Gertrude McFuzz birds and are drawing clowns to paint next, and kindergarten made their glasses, and now they're practicing gluing lines like Mondrian (which I don't really have the greatest post for, the lesson is barely mentioned).
Maybe it's teaching so long, maybe it's my schedule, maybe it's not being pregnant ('cause I've done enough teaching while pregnant), but whatever it is, this year has been delightful so far.  Fun and interesting and FUN. Perhaps it's a combination of better schedule/not being pregnant/no more babies up in the night AND experience?  I'll take it!!!!

Starting to Think of Summer Days Spent in the Garden

It's spring! Like, all-the-way-really-truly spring around here.  To help bring on nice weather, first grade and kindergarten artists made some beautiful gardens:

A group of first grade flower/butterfly gardens.

Kindergarten garden with snake.

I thought I'd blogged about the first grade gardens before, but can't seem to find the post . . . my brain's pretty overloaded this time of year (Jesus help me if I need to remember anything like my debit pin number or my own children's names the last month or so of the school year).  Anyway, first graders used 6 x 18" blue background papers for the sky and 4 x 18" green papers to make the grass.  They then used construction paper to make flowers and colored butterflies (it's a photocopy of four butterflies that I've had for like, a million years):

I only let them cut out one butterfly at a time, color the back (symmetrically, of course) and glue them on one at a time ('cause I don't like lost/confused butterflies).  They glue only the body with the wings folded up:

The kindergarten lesson is one I got from Arts & Activities issue March 2006 (thank you Mary McNamara Mulkey from Sumner, Washington, I use this lesson a lot).  Kindergartners draw along with me making flowers using ONE color of marker, then color in and draw some ladybugs.  

Because my first graders can't accordion fold, I added a pattern snake this year (we used 2 x 24" paper):

And one last close-up of a nicely colored flower:

Sometimes Things Turn Out Like This

You just never know, you know?  This is a lesson I haven't done in ages, and it was actually a lesson I used to with second grade, but I sort of forgot and started it with first and it's so very perfect for them:

It's such an amazing drawing!

We start out with looking at Albrecht Durer's Rhinoceros, looking at all his amazing implied textures.  I also pulled a few more drawings off the internet of animals, (showing texture, of course).  Students drew animals on 12 x 18 white paper with pencil and traced with black Sharpie.  

Giant fish with scales.

I love this flamingo.

The next time they came we reviewed warm and cool colors and outlined our animals with marker:

Just starting out with cool colors.

Just starting out with warm colors.

This is a parrot, by the way, surrounded with cool colors.

A turtle with warm colors. Not so sure he really got the texture concept,
but we'll re-visit it again.

Mr. Yak with his warm colors.  We may do another half art period
on these for finishing touches.

There were some tears (the weather's wild here, and it was crazy town today with student behaviors) "I'm not finished!!!" "I wanna take mine home NOW!" The work is so great I'm willing to stand through the random crying and bask in the greatness of it all.