Room Display, Crazy Art Days, Spring Meetings...20 Day Left?!

Well, I know it's been  a while but that's mainly because there has been plenty going on and my mind has been running around between my head and insanity thanks to it being 20 days until the end of the school year. Can you believe that? It is unbelievable for me to think about the fact that I am 20 days away from completing my first year of teaching.  And it has been nothing short of spectacular.

Let me start off by noting that my school managed to contribute over 2,000 cranes to the Relief for Japan funding I mentioned last time.  How fantastic. What a great experience and such a fun thing to be a part of. I was so proud of many of my students for how involved they became.

Probably the next most dramatic change in the art room of LMJ would be my decorating skills.  I had to get in physical fights with a couple staplers first but I managed to make and create the beginning of some pretty sweet bulletin boards if I do say myself.  And for an art teacher, you'll think it's weird but I hate doing bulletin boards - they take a lot of time and if they aren't pushing the creativity meter, they just look blah. So I am doing what I can.  My first master piece...

The Building Blocks of Art.  Now I know "pink" is not in the rainbow but given that I was trying to stick with the 6 colors of the color wheel, I threw in pink as a tribute to mixing colors with white...or something. I don't know. I think it's pretty clever.  The kids love it. Said it brightens up the room.

 And my second attempt at a bulletin board...

Only after I made this did I realize that it's somewhat creepy however, after the last couple weeks, it has been filled up with examples of art from every corner of the brain...so it's less creepy and the kids tend to ask about the art and think less about the eyes.

Thank you Tagxedo.Com...

Yes. I love Tagxedo. :) 4 Tagxedos of what each grade does each year in art. The more prominent words are units we spend more time on. :)

Blurry but you get the idea...

Color Theory Cupboards! I still have to add an actual color wheel for obvious reasons but these are some simple ways I've gotten my 5th graders to "code" the color wheel into categories. It really brightens up the cupboards too.

Favorite caption. Well...half of it.  The other half wouldn't fit. Simple as that.

And drum roll please...the 5th graders are FINALLY done with their weavings! :) Here are a couple examples that take the cake and stood out from the rest for reasons regarding color, craftsmanship, decor and overall yadda yadda yadda.

6th Graders are finally all moving onto Heraldry for their last lesson and I'll be posting pics of their Multi Material Projects soon - all the kids loved ending with Oil Pastels (one of my favorite mediums).

For the day before Easter Break, I gave my 8th graders a chance to get crazy and bring out the Kinder Kid inside of them by letting them play with shaving cream. Many have done this lesson with students but my students hadn't even heard of it. And so I figured, what the heck. I scrounged up my pocket change (with Matt's help) and bought some cheap shaving cream.

The process is to level out some shaving cream like frosting, drip some colors, pull the color through like marble, print the paper, scrape off the shaving cream and the stain of the print looks like marble.  The fun part about this easy going activity is that they ended class asking why they had to leave and if they could do more things like this if they got ahead in other work. Um of course. They also got to blow bubbles in tubs of colored dish soap and print with that. If you don't know the lesson, feel free to ask.

7th grade is painting their monochromatics, 8th grade is finishing up pottery - both of which I cannot wait to snap pictures of and show the world! This trimester is ROCKING it! And what a great way to end the year.

Not to mention I got half of my portfolio done - something I didn't see coming. Ugh, paper work but such is the life of a teacher now a days.  Meeting tomorrow for Art Educators of Iowa which should be fun - hopefully I can survive. I have had to skip 3  (COUNT THEM THREE, UGH) work out classes due to a high fever, sinus infection, and all around body aches.  It's awful. The only reason I can even comprehend this post is because I drugged myself so much that I'm numb to the pain. School was brutal today - I wanted to crawl in a hole because of how sick I felt.

Well, that's all folks. And my buddies tonight wish you well. :) Until next time (at this rate will be an end of the year summary hahaha).

Duke and Roxxy sleeping as I type. <3