All Those Student Art Magazines

I love the idea of student-level art magazines.  I loved Weekly Reader as a kid, and when I came to my current school eleven years ago the previous teacher had a couple year's subscription to Scholastic Art and something called Art & Man.  There were so many! I diligently organized them by artist/genre and found a place for them on my shelf.  And there they sat, gathering dust.  In my cleaning spree I gathered them up to donate to a new art teacher. 

And then I wavered.  Did I really want to donate all of them?  There were too many to fit in a box, so I went back through them and kept five of each.  Still the box was too heavy, so I pulled more out.  I made a smaller section for my five-of-each and put them back:

I decided to put my extras that didn't fit in the box in my magazines for collage:

And then I worried about that.  Is it okay to let students cut them up? What message does it send?  Is it somehow weirdly sacra-art-igous?  We're doing a collage in fifth grade right now (blog post coming on that soon) and my stomach dropped a little every time a student pulled one out to cut.  But the world kept turning, some students used them in awesome ways and I have a cleaner counter.  So that's good, right?  Then why do I still feel anxious about it?

Nothing Like Some Last Minute Panic Setting In

There's so much to keep up with! I knew I'd switched half the elementary schools to the fall show date at our central office as the other group had done the fall date for years.  I knew it was coming.  I knew I was supposed to fill half the display case, but for some reason September 20th seemed so far off.  
But it's not, it's tomorrow and I had NOTHING for the display case as of 8:30 am this morning, September 19th.
In true professional art teacher fashion, I ditched my plans for sixth grade (finish binding their sketchbooks and start their t-shirt designs) and had them make paper sculptures (working alone or with a friend or two).  I had some leftover foam core pieces for the bases, and they had 35 minutes to work.
Here's a few of what they created:

Dinosaur by a student who literally started at our school last week.

Sponge Bob's house by a student who spent her recess finishing it all up.

Some sitting on my [newly-cleaned-this-year counter top] to dry.

A collaborative rainbow.

Now they only need to dry for delivery to central office tomorrow afternoon.
Friday this class will be back to their regular plans, but they really helped pull off a miracle for me today!

Poster Outside My Door This Year

Every year I do a different poster outside my classroom door to welcome students to my class/be interactive/let students know more about me and my family.  You can read about previous posters here, or here.  The 2015/16 poster went over really well because it was interactive, so I went back to that buffet and made a spinner for this year's poster:

The top says "Mrs. Fresia likes to begin with the end in mind.  She uses Habit 2 when she. . . " 

It's our third (?) year as a Leader In Me school, so our students are working to live the seven habits.  I wanted them to see it as it relates to real life (thus this year's poster).

The spinner choices are:

• plans activities with her family
• makes dinner 
• plans and grows her garden
• makes artwork
• develops art lessons for YOU

The spinner arrow is cut out of foam core.  For the spinning parts,  I pretty much wandered the hardware section of my local Westlake Hardware and found flat-head screws, washers and the end piece that I thought would work (I think I spent 53 cents total).

I (of course) had the photos developed super last minute and the colors are horrific, friends.  I kind of doubt elementary students are going to remember that the colors of the turkey-and-stuffing-dinner-that-my-husband-actually-made-and-not-me are way off, so I just went with it. The mirror is one of those breakable locker types that I found in my basement from my oldest daughter's seventh grade locker (she's 21, don't judge my hoarding-ness).

It's been a fun poster for students--there's lots of spinning as they walk by my room. It's always interesting to watch the students who won't touch it and then ask incredulously, we can touch that?!  The edges of the arrow are getting a bit frayed, so I may have to add some tape, but this poster is a winner winner!