How exciting!

How exciting! As I was traveling through other fellow art blog sites, I found my own bulletin board picture featured on a recent post!! My bulletin board

1st Grade - Geometric Shape Houses

Yay! My first post about a project. 1st Grade students are working on design artwork that incorporates lines and shapes.

Teacher example of Completed Project

Teacher example of shapes with texture

We discussed and created a list of geometric shapes. We talked about what a circle, square, and triangle become when you stretch them out. Each student filled 2 pages with a variety of sizes and types of shapes (circle, triangle, square, rectangle, oval) by using black crayon for the outline. Upon completion of drawing, we introduced using texture rubbing plates and students and colored their shapes with the plates with a variety of colors.
I introduced cutting by practicing and talking about cutting etiquette.

Students then had a chance to "play" and we talked about that your house should look like it's not going to fall over.

The following examples are from my 1st/2nd grade CC (Special Ed) class. We did more guided instruction by talking about the size of the shapes to pick before gluing down,etc.

Catching Up: Bulletin Boards

So with Open House a few weeks ago I was struggling to come up with ideas to fill my multiple bulletin boards. My classes were not near the end of the project and although I like putting up in progress work, my students are not fully respecting things that are hung up, so I am not ready to put up progress work yet.
1. Main Art Bulletin Board: I will continue to put up each grade's project goal with objectives

2. I found this next idea off of another teacher's blog and ran with it.
The quote reads: "Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.
Pablo Picasso " 

3. The next bulletin board I also was inspired from another teacher blog. I was pleasantly surprised by one student. I gave 3rd grade students a slip of paper that read ART IS....

I asked them to finish the sentence and then draw around it. 

In my 3rd Grade CC(Special ED) room I had them do the same activity but told them to just worry about drawing a picture.  At the end  I was walking around looking at the pictures and asked a student what she drew. She said "It's YOU". She had drawn a picture of me and my art cart, because to her Art is me coming to their classroom. I wanted to cry because someone had finally grasped it! I felt like I had accomplished ART with these students. 

Surviving the First Week with New Ideas

Well I'm free and clear from my 5 days of introductory lessons. As I begin to be emerged into my 2nd year of teaching, I'm starting to enforce my new classroom management plan. This year I will be using "Art Lights".
 Here's a picture of my "Art Lights" displayed in my classroom (that I have once a week). I decided to try a new management approach that is similar to what classroom teachers have implemented for a long time, but took it for an art twist. My "Art Lights" consist of 4 steps that apply to the whole classroom rather than on an individual basis.
"Blue"= Excellent
"Green" = Good
"Yellow" = Warning, Lose 2 minutes of talking
"Red"= Quiet Art Time
When a class has a blue or green day, they earn a crayon. When the class earns 8 crayons, they will have an art party. Basically, some class time to take a break from the project and have some free choice time.
So I'll keep updates about how the management system is working for this year.

Other new things for the year:
- Art Sketchbooks- Each class will keep them and work in them the first 5 minutes of class as a warm-up.
-Bulletin Boards- This year I will have about 5 bulletin boards designated to Art.
-Art job board

Here's my main bulletin board, which I use to post what projects I'm doing or news about Art. This is in my "home school" for a K-3 building.

Teaching at Multiple Schools

This is my 2nd year as a full-time elementary Art teacher in a K-8 school district in the Chicago suburbs.
Last year, I worked between 3 schools with 2 out 3 schools being art-on-a-cart and one classroom for one day per week. I taught students from 1st grade to 6th grade, most being seen once a week. I focused on developing my classroom management, developing lessons based upon our district curriculum, and creating connections in my schools.


This year I will continue to work at 3 schools, with 2 of them being from last year's schedule, and one new one. I believe that I will continue to have a classroom for 1 day a week, be on a cart for 3 days, and one day I will be able to utilize the gym for art.

I am excited to be starting this year as I am revamping my classroom management, policies/procedures, organization, and goals for the year.

Back to School!

I'm embarking upon my 2nd year as an Art teacher! As I work through unpacking boxes and setting up at 3 schools, I have been reflecting upon last year and deciding upon how to begin the year.

Last year, I had 3 rules: Be respectful, Be responsible, and Be Safe. I'm looking to be more specific to art but not lengthy. My classes seemed to be very 'reward driven' as I had in place what is called "Picasso Pick". 4 numbers were placed on the board at the beginning of the class period. The numbers remained on the board as long as students were on task, not too loud, be respectful,etc. At the end of the class period, a raffle was held. So if 3 numbers were left on the board, 3 numbers were picked from my box and those corresponded to numbers next to the students' names on the class roster. Students were not picked more than once without everyone getting a turn.

Any suggestions for new rules and reward system?