Oh, Yes, Must Be Parent Teacher Conference Time

Co-workers trying out our new "selfie station".

I don't know about you, but I don't have tons of parent teacher conferences to attend.  This year I'm using some of my time to make items for our art show (in March).  I decided to make a "selfie station" for the students and their families to take photos.  I made a quick Mona Lisa and American Gothic, and then wished I'd made a Frida Kahlo with stick-on eyebrows as a prop--oh well, there's always next year.  

I was really trying to get the expression right here.

Love her expression!

I've also been meaning to post this latest adaptive lesson:

Quinton drew saying "I love you so much, I'm so proud of you!"
It's him and his mom.

Very simple.  I gave each adaptive student a fourth of a 8 1/2 x 11 piece of paper (so 4 1/4 x 5 1/2) and an extra fine Sharpie.  I had them write their name (if they were able) and draw a picture of themselves (if they were able).  I then was able to lay four on the copier at a time and shrink them down to 70-75%.  I then cut them apart and glued or taped them to the upper corner of each part of a piece of copy paper, allowing me to copy four students at once. 

I made 50 copies, cut them in fourths and used this product:

The hardest part was cutting the pages evenly and stacking them to paint the Pad/Book Compound on, but then I got this:

LOVE LOVE LOVE!!!!! The students will be making gift bags and maybe adding magnets to the back.  I'm hoping for some positive parent feedback because so often parents of adaptive students don't get genuine art work that is truly reflective of their child's ability.  

Now, back to funny photos of my co-workers as great works of art:

Christmas break is not that far away, we can make it!!!

Four Layers of

. . . the rainforest.  Surely, you KNEW that was what I was going to say? 

Second grade learned all about the rainforest with a Smart Notebook presentation.  I got it off the Smart Notebook Exchange and modified it to meet my needs.  You can get it here (find the one entitled, 'Rainforest' and while you're there, get 'Rainforest Animals' too).  We spent a class period just talking about the rainforest (we also talked about movies students may have seen like Up).  We then painted with tempera cakes (I like the Biggie cakes) on 12 x 18 white paper.

We spent a class period or two painting, and then a couple of class periods drawing a variety of rainforest animals on 9 x 12 paper.  I put the single slide of rainforest animals up on the Smartboard, as well as books on every table that I got from the school library.  We drew with pencil and colored with skinny markers (more variety of colors in those sets).

A tiger on the forest floor.

A jaguar hanging out in the understory layer.

Red eyed tree frogs are a second grade favorite!

Then (bet you saw this coming) we cut and glued our rainforest animals onto our rainforest backgrounds.  I had many who did some lazy cutting easier cutting by cutting around the animal rather than on/close to the line.  We'll be cutting many more times in second grade, so we will get better at cutting!

Not wild about the cutting, LOVE the sky in this one.

Notice the claws on the leaping jaguar.

Finally we used botantical cuts to add some camouflage and a more jungle-y look:

I love this one, so JUNGLE-Y!

Something about the blue bird is very peaceful to me on this one.

This student spent so long on his snake, getting it through the vines.

What's not to love here? Spiders, parrots and jaguars, OH MY!

I also had them glue an "I Learned" sheet on the bottom (literally a strip of copy paper, cut into strips with the sentence starter When I did this project I learned:)
I love that all of these are so different, and as soon as the painters are done re-painting the walls of our school, I'll put them up in the hall.  Speaking of different:

Ahh, a beautiful rainbow!

Oooo, stormy skies! Really thinking here!

?????? 

In all seriousness, I love it when kids are totally different and marching to their own drums!
Art teacher on, friends!

I'd Recommend Plaster

Well, I did it.  I conquered my fear of plaster!  It really was OK (mostly thanks to advice I got from some veteran teachers at conference this past weekend).  Here are some things I did that made it go smoothly (and some things that could have gone better):  I had cottage cheese containers half full of water at every table ready to go when they got in, I had small plastic baskets of plaster craft cut at each table (but not nearly enough, so I spent the entire class period frantically cutting more), I had four buckets/tubs of water at the back table for students to swirl their plaster-covered hands in before washing them, I covered the tables with paper for easy clean up (although I totally forgot to do this the second day) and I gave them three extra clean up minutes.  
Here are some photos after the mayhem, because I was too busy cutting more strips:

Smeary tables from the day I forgot paper.

Cups and buckets for water.

Plaster letters drying.

Room for drying is kind of hard to find

There is a dusty trail of plaster leading from my room through the gym and outside (to where there's also white grass from where students and I threw out the water buckets as to not stop up the sink).  The feedback from students has been very positive: they like how quickly it dries and how hard it is (compared to papier mache, which they have loads of experience with because I do love it so), and it's just something new and different and messy, so they like that too.  I haven't had complaints from the custodial staff yet (crossing my fingers and knocking on wood as I write that).
My verdict is I would definitely do plaster again (although I've never actually had to purchase it), because it wasn't as scary as I made it out to be in my head. YEAH for free plaster!!!!

Kind of Scared

There's good and bad things about experience.  Good: classroom management is easier, more lessons to choose from, better handle on ordering supplies, organizing supplies.  Bad: I know when to be scared.  Using Plastercraft with 27 fifth graders kind of terrifies me.  We're making three dimensional letters in a Pop Art style, and I won a box of Plastercraft at a conference several years ago that I've never opened.  Just opening it and starting my own example made a giant mess. How is it not going to stop up the sink? I already know I'm not having them use my regular water cups, but should I throw away the cups we use so all the leftover plaster doesn't go down the drain? Is this whole plaster idea even worth it? I'm willing to try with one class, but if it's a disaster we'll go right back to papier mache (which I'm way comfortable with).  It also doesn't help that I remember a post from Mr. E a while ago about plaster (and third grade?) being a total mess. . . 
Anyone have plaster management advice?

Just Outside My Door

There is an easel just outside my door, with a poster that I change every year.  It's actually a piece of poster board securely taped to a piece of foam board that is tied to the easel with pipe cleaners (can you tell I've had things knocked over before?).  I like to do a totally different one every year, and this is what this year's looks like:

Hard to see in the photo, but it says:
Knock Knock WHO'S THERE? a few things that make Mrs. Fresia smile

I was really torn between this idea a sort of "Sweet Sixteen" theme (for my sixteenth year teaching) but in the end, this idea one out and I'm very happy with it.  Each door opens:

First/red door

The black is magnet strips, so the doors will stay closed.

The blue door got a smear of red on it from someone opening it.
Kind of like what happens on your front door at home.

Gardening!

I googled "front doors," looked at the images and painted from those images.

I need to photograph my artwork more often,
but this is my purse for the year.
It's Gelli-printed on an old running shirt,
then appliqued--it says:
MAKE ART TODAY,
or
TODAY MAKE ART
depending on how you're looking at it.

Last door. . . 

This is an acrylic mirror.  I have a class set of stand-up
acrylic mirrors and one broke.
I saved it, scored it with an Exact-O knife
and cut it to size.

I'm enjoying the interactive aspect of this year's poster, and I know the students are too.  Every single day children are opening the doors and commenting (or maybe checking for spinach in their teeth).

Not 'Lion,' I Really Like These Lions (Now)

After help from some readers (thank you, Christie & Connie for being supportive readers) I do now really like our lions.  What started out as some cutting practice really came together well:

We drew our lions together with marker, cut them out and assembled them.  Thanks to Christie's brilliant idea, we added some tempera paint (two finger printing for clouds and cardboard edge for grass).  I had pre-cut 4 x 18" strips, and we added paint to that too.  After drying, more cutting (the grass) and some glue, we were done:

And because our building is in our first year of becoming a Leader In Me school, I had to throw that in too:

I was so excited to get it all put up that I did it just after they were finished, so I'm betting some will be glued to the bulletin board! They are just delightful, and right off one of our attendance offices, so I think they'll get lots of admirers.