TAEA convention

Leaving for TAEA convention today in Dallas. Looking forward to 4 days of like-minded educators, art, exhibit tables and fun!

A little nervous about doing a presentation for the first time- even if it is on a small scale. Luckily, I am going first. Tomorrow, 8-9 am and done! Then I can enjoy the rest of the weekend without worries.

If you are in Texas and you are heading up to Dallas for the convention, stop by the Simple Sketchbooks Walk-Up table and say hi! I believe I will be on the second floor.

Will post pictures on my return. Pin It

Choice Based Art Education

I am looking for some help/advice/information from all of you art educators out there....

I am beginning to do some research on Choice Based Art Education. This is something that I would really like to implement at my school. I am easing into it this year, by giving the students a variety of options in their final products. I have not been able to give up complete control... yet. It is a learning process for me and for the students.

What the students have been creating so far this year has been wonderful and I would really like to learn more about fully implementing it next year.

Are there any of you who already do this??

It strikes me as very similar to the way I taught when I was in the content classroom (K-6 and multi-age) and I would love to get back to it! It seems like a very natural way of teaching. Ideas, suggestions???

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Retirement Centerpiece

 A couple of weeks ago, I was asked to have some students create a centerpiece for a retirement party for one of our district personnel.

Since we were working on such short notice, it had to be something that could be worked on before school (I pulled a handful of students who are here early) and it had to be something that I had materials handy for.

Ceramics!

 I used my extruder to create a tray full of coils. The students used the coils to build a bowl. I had them build it around a large plastic bowl that I had handy in the room, using it as a mold.

I have these cute little sun molds that the students used to add decorations to the outside of the bowl.

It dried pretty quickly, so I was able to fire it within a couple of days of building the bowl.

Once it was fired, the students chose the colors for glazing.

They wanted it to be bright, happy and colorful- blue, red, purples, yellow and orange!

I fired it one more time and am quite happy with the results of our spur of the moment, 1 week project!

I just happened to have some paper mache fruit that my first graders had finished for our Cezanne project.... Ta da!  A retirement centerpiece!

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Kindergarten Monsters

This was the second project with my kindergartners where I had choices set up in stations for their project.

I began by reading them one of my new favorite books, I Need My Monster by Amanda Noll. Once we were done with the book, the students were shown all of the projects. I had each project set up at a station with 8 spaces available. Once the spaces were filled, the station was closed to anyone else.

Station 1:

Sponge painting monster-

Students had a tray of paint with sponges. They used the sponges to create a general monster shape on a piece of construction paper.

For the second class, they used a basket of sequins, foam shapes and beads to decorate and add eyes, horns, fingers, etc.

The last day was used to add a variety of lines to their monsters: zig zag, wavy, straight, etc using construction paper crayons.

Station 2:

Marker monsters-

Students drew a monster with pencil and then traced it with black marker. They used the black marker to add lines (wavy, zig zag, etc).

The next class was used to color their monsters with markers.

The last day they decorated their monsters with sequins, foam shapes and beads.

Station 3:

Coffee tin monsters-

Students made a monster out of an International Coffee tin (one of our teachers donated 3 large boxes full of these wonderful tins- with their lids!). I used scissors to cut a mouth shape for the students and then they painted the tin with tempera paint.

The 2nd day was used for decorating with sequins, foam shapes and beads.

The last day, they used construction paper crayons to add lines.

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1st Grade Picasso's

I had such success with the first grade Picasso's last year, that I did not change the project for this year.

We looked at a variety of portraits painted by Picasso and then drew our own. The students were allowed to choose if they wanted to use liquid watercolor, oil pastels or Crayola Color Sticks.

See last year's post for more info: 2012 Picasso Portraits

Here are examples of this year's finished products:

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