While on vacation, I read the book Columbine, which is about the school shooting in Colorado. I’m interested in psychology, schools and kids. A depressing and heart wrenching read, but a thoroughly comprehensive look at the psychology of the kids,…
Once a year, a local art store hosts a Re-Art Swap where anyone can drop off old art materials and then pick up things they want. All for free! Today, I volunteered for a few hours at the swap and…
Oh, how much fun was Disneyworld! We had a blast. We drove to Florida from Madison, WI which took us 2 1/2 days of driving. Then we went to the different Disney parks for 6 days. My daughter Daria had…
How do you organize your handouts for school? When I started teaching I thought it would be best to organize by unit or by grade level or in binders… I tried all sorts of things. But it was always hard…
We are out of school now for the summer, but I have some projects that I have not blogged about yet to share with you. I will update the blog throughout the summer with artsy thoughts, my summer activities, a…
I just wanted to show you one more very cool picture.. it was another parody of American Gothic. This student was absent and had to catch up on this project. Here are the baby chicks our school hatched, which are…
front cover back cover (everything is actually straight on the cover, it’s just the angle I took the picture at) One of my jobs at school is the yearbook adviser. This is a huge job and takes up a lot…
This is a picture-heavy post!! The 2nd graders reminded me that we had not done any clay this year yet! How could that be? So I decided to try this project that I come up with based on a clay…
What is better than drawing? Bringing in your favorite stuffed animals from home to draw, of course! Allowing students to choose their subject matter from things that are important to them will spark interest and excitement. Allowing students to share…
The 4/5s learned how to draw 3-d forms and include shading and shadows. They stacked these shapes to make a “secret city”. This lesson is based on Mark Kistler’s drawing books. This artist had a series of television shows that…
We made Treasure Boxes at an after school art class that I taught this month. The students were in grades K-6 (about 12 kids). I picked up cigar boxes from a local shop and the kids were able…
These were some fun paper Memory Quilts that the kindergartners made! Aren’t they cute? We read Tar Beach, by Faith Ringgold and talked about her story quilts. The children received a square piece of white paper, which had 9 squares…
Sometimes I like to let the kids loose with a box of supplies and minimal instruction. I photocopied some pages from Lynda Barry’s book and showed them to the first graders. In the box were paper scraps, magazines, strips of…
First, we looked at the art of Bridget Riley and the Op art movement. We read a Scholastic Art issue which features this style of art. If you don’t get these magazines, they are a great investment. Each year, we…
These pictures are based on the book Elmer! I love this book and the colorful elephants. The kids drew their own elephants and colored them with fun patterns. The borders were made by cutting up and gluing strips of wrapping…