Creating space...

Side note on the Rocket Line project. If there is time (and only some classes had time) I invited the students back to a spatter painting stations. They used white tempera cakes and toothbrushes to fill their black paper with starts. The KIDS love this and I really like the results.

Step one to our Line project...

I think blog posts should be short and to the point. Not a total tweet but short, picture filled, and specific. That is why I will be posting in two parts for some of my bigger projects, as this one is...

Day 1: Our second grade has to understand the difference between thick and thin line. Here you see a student creating a rocket. The only directions are to have the ship touch all four sides and use line.

Day 2: More line, this time concentrating on thick and thin a bit more. We talked about how you can use different tools to create different sides lines. For the yellow I asked the kiddo's to use a thick brush and then the red they used a thin Q-tip.

This will become their blast off lines to their rocket ships... Stay tuned for tomorrows post:)

'C' stocking

'C' Stocking... By: Nichole Hahn

I won... Well there was five winners and I'm number five... but still I get some fun fabrics from the store. Check it out. Quilted Treasures is a great shop in town but it also has a wonderful online store.

Shapescapes

This is my favorite thing in Kindergarten so far this year. We made Shapescapes. I had the kids use their 4 shape they have to learn in Kindergarten to create scapes, such as landscapes, cityscape, and seascape.

Here we have the landscape. I gave them the work horizon line early in this unit. The used it in all three scapes. The landscapes used the circles.

Cityscapes was all about squares and rectangles. These shapes are hard for young hands.

Then, triangles. As you can see we changed the medium a bit. We used markers, and colored paper. Cutting and gluing skills were used to make their seascape.

Finally, we place them all together in a book. On the back of the cover there was an art note covering all the words and concepts this book covered. I handed this back to the teachers to hand out during conferences. On each book I tried to write a little personal art note. It is a lot of work for 100+ kindergartners, but it is something I would cherish as a parent, so I make the time.

The best thing about this project is you set it up and you have 4 to 5 hours of work ready to go and prepped. Try it out, you'll love it!

Puple Project

I went to the Minnesota Art Education conference a couple of weeks ago. In one of my sessions they were talking about Stop Motion Animation. I wanted to give it a try. I set up the room for my 1st grade to take pictures and really, it went OK.

As you can see above, I set up three stations. I taped EVERYTHING down. The tripods, boxes, and the tripods to table.

I also placed some tape on the cameras. I thought this might help the 1st graders focus on what button they were to hit to take a picture.

The concept for this process was the color PURPLE. I gave them red play-dough and blue play-dough and had them mix the two. They created a sculpture with the dough and place them inside the box. I had them animate the red and blue blocks in the space.

When you watch the video you will see I gave the kids each a jobs; two movers and one 'camera guy'. The kids did a great job for their first time taking footage and I placed it all together using iPhoto and iMovie. Please check it out below...

NY ATC- Overlapping

This is my ATC with New York. The concept studied was overlapping. I used organic and free-form shapes as a review but the main concept is overlapping. I have found that I am using these ATC in replace of worksheets. I'm getting ready to teach depth in a landscape I always start with the illusions of depth (overlapping, size, placement, detail and color). I have the kids do a worksheet so they get the concepts. Then do the project. With these ATC I have got rid of a worksheet that will be tossed out as soon as they leave the classroom. Instead they are creating small gifts for other artist. In the same action they are gaining the knowledge I find essential to a successful 4th grade landscape.

Here is the lesson I bring them through for this small trading card.

Interactive Board Tip

HighlightsKids.com is a fun site to bring kids to if you have an interactive board. Here you can see my kiddo's who finished early at the front of the class doing a hidden picture find, just like the magazine. There are a lot of fun math games and digital collage. You should check it out. It is updated all the time!

ATC with Arkansas... Placement and Size

More trades waiting to go out. Here is the trading cards for Arkansas. Once again this is a concept prepping the kids for their landscape project. Here we are talking about placement and size. I did gave two options for this concept. They could draw a simple landscape, or food on a counter. The kids had a good time with this project. Hope the Arkansas kiddo's like it.

Here's the quick of my 'how to' lesson. If you are wondering, I go through this lesson on my smartboard and then I leave it up. If a kid wants to know a step they are encouraged to come up and move the slide forward or backwards. It works out great!

Indiana ATC- Warm and Cool Colors

3rd grade ATC with Indiana. Here the concept studied was warm and cool colors. When deciding with Eastridge what we should do for our exchange we discovered that both schools have a mascot of Rockets. There we have it. We 'blasted' our rocket ships off last week, and it was reported they landed safely. How fun!

Countdown Turkey's

Sometimes a classic is perfect.

I remind myself once and a while that a classic art project to me is the first time our students (and in this case, my mini's) have made it. I'm always looking for new ideas, but projects from 'back in the day' have value too. Here we have two thanksgiving turkey's done my by 3 and 4 year-old. Everyday Matisse tells us one thing she is thankful for and we write it for her. She glue dot's it on to her turkey. Sawyer is learning reading and writing so he writes a word on his feather everyday and places it on. We are using it for a count down to Thanksgiving (which is also Sawyer's birthday:)).

I have a confession...

When I graduated from preschool in 1983, my parents knew I was a good artist. I painted every day and loved to create. They knew I didn't like to get my hands dirty, and liked playing with the boys better then the girls. My parents knew many of the characteristics that I have today. The one thing they didn't know until 2nd grade was that this sweet little face was going to struggle in school. She was going to be excited for a 'C' average. She was going to write every spelling word a hundred times and still not be able to pass the test. She was going to cry at least once a week because school was just too hard. When I was in second grade my parent found out I am Dyslexic.

I'm 30 something now and Dyslexia is a issue I deal with everyday. As anyone who has read my post knows, I'm not good at spelling. There is a reason. I never would read out loud, or play scrabble with anyone, or share my thoughts on paper. Blogging was the last thing I thought I would ever do. When I did my masters, I researched blogging in the classroom. I read the book Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts and other Powerful Web Tools for the Classroom. It states that blogs are note about grammar and spelling, they are about thoughts. It gave me the courage to try.

I want to thank those of you who have not judged me on my spelling abilities. I want to share my ideas, and love this form of meeting and collaborating. If I could, this blog would be spelling error free, but my brain just wont work that way. Please forgive my weakness and continue to read and comment on my blog.

Holding my breath while I decide to share this... You blogging friend--- Nic

Blue and Yellow make GREEN!

1st grade worked on the color green recently. Here's how we did it...

We talked about Claude Monet's and his technique he used to create some of his water lily images. I gave the kids yellow and blue paint with a q-tip to apply the paint in a similar way.

We left them to day. Day two the kids cut out lily pads and created the water lilies to place on the art work. The concept studied was GREEN as a secondary color.

Art Critiques and Reflections

This is an introduction to art reflection and art critique. I explain that art reflection is looking at your own art and art critique is looking at others art. I find this is a 'kid' friendly way to explain it. We are finishing up our trading cards for Indiana, USA. The kids got in a group of three and first talk about their own art. Then they switched their group of three and explained their artwork to a new group. We repeated this process 4 or so times. Then they found yet another group and this time talked about each others work. It was fun to hear that they were proud, nervous, shy, excited... to talk about their art and others. I even heard one kid say they felt like the teacher looking at other work... and that was fun:)

Gallery Walk

Gallery Walks are one of the ways I ask students to self assess. When we have a large drawing project and I want to give the kids a break in the long 60 minute class, I ask them to do a gallery walk. They leave their art work at their table and walk around the room. They can look at how other artist are approaching the problem and make adjustments when they go back to their place. As you can see, kids are typically admiring the art as if they were walking through an Art Museum. I don't get to bring them on a field trip but I do talk a little about Art edict.

Sneak Peek

ATC going to Australia...

I am so excited about my first official trade!!! Anne has sent me hers and the sneak peek made me smile! Ours are on the way! Can't wait to hear what some of your kids have to say, post something about the venn diagram experience! I will be posting the same:)

MoMA

Need some ideas? Visit MoMA...

Clean up Robot...

More fun music. This one Art Teachers will love! I wanted a clean up song that when the kids hear it, they know it is time to clean up... I found it with Mark D. Pencil. He has a song called 'Clean up Robot' and it works... When it plays, no matter if I am working with K's or 5th graders, they stop what they are doing, put a smile on and 'do the clean up robot'. Try it, it will blow you away how well your little robots will work for you!

Music is good for the soul...

Tip:

If you are wondering what to put on your wish list for the holidays, consider a iTune's card. I use this for every lesson. As I mentioned yesterday on my post, I have the kids listen to Greg Percy quit a bit. I also have them listen to music from the culture they are studying. For example, when 4th and 5th grade students were woking on Day of the Dead I asked a friend of mine who lives in Mexico to send me some hot pop music. I asked her for the Justin Bieber of Mexico. Great stuff and the kids (as well as myself) loved it. When we were making our line rockets, I found space music by typing in Rocket into the iTunes store. I have also learned that it is a good motivator for students. I have asked them to go to my web page and fill out forms telling me what music they are into. It keeps me 'hip':) I need all the help I can get:)

Music put information in your brain...

If you are an art teacher and do not know Greg Percy, you are missing out! I have all of his disks via iTunes and I use them all the time. Not only do my Kindergartners know the primary colors because of his music, but my two year old does as well. I am a big believer of using many ways to teach and learn. This is just one more. Music is a great way to teach your kids concepts. There is even a song about 'You Married an Art Teacher'. My husband was shocked to know that someone had wrote a song representing our relationship to a 'T':) Check it out... you'll love it!

Using their body...

How cute are these little buggers! We are working on shapes and today was triangles. I asked the kids to get into groups of three. My instruction was to make a triangle using their bodies. They came up with many creative ways to do it. It was fun to hear them discuss the matter with one another to problem solve. I love that kids can talk about making a triangle with their bodies as seriously as we might talk about politics or religion.

Painting with ease...

Simplify painting. When I just want to hit a concept quickly but need to use paint here are some of the time savers that I use for my kiddos.

1. I use q-tips for paint bushes
2. I use one disposable container
3. The kids share at each table

Here is an example... Tints with my 3rd grade. I had them fold the paper in 4th and write their name and teacher code on the back. Each table got a container of white paint, a bottle of color, and a stir stick (tongue depressor stick). Each student had a q-tip. I asked student number 1 to poor a little paint into the white. They mixed it up and all the students at the table painted their 1st section with that color. Then the second student added color and stirred, that color was added onto the second space. They continued this process until the paper was filled. They had a blast with it, it was controlled, and very easy for clean up.

Name Desings

Thanks to wonderful blogs like teaching kids art, my 5th grade was able to create these wonderful designs. I used them for my Square 1 Art project at the beginning of the year but haven't had the time to post them. The kids are really happy with them and they are excited that they were able to create such a wonderful optical illusion just using their names. Good stuff! Thanks Teaching Kids Art for the idea.

Volunteer Village House?

Last year my fellow bloggers gave a call out to us because they needed our help. My school, and others blogging schools, stepped up. We made little houses to earn money to send to Nashville to help with the flood victims. My 5th grade along with our student council sold the houses and raised $200.00. We donated to money to the Red Cross. I submitted the earnings and sent emails several times to be included on the map on the website. I was so excited to present that to my students but it never happened. The website has not been updated for a very long time. Does anyone know about this at all? Did other donate? Did others submit it to the website? Let me know please.

So to Mrs. Rachel, Mr. E , and Ms. Malone we did listen and helped how we could. I hope you are healing from such a disaster!

Give me your shoes...

5 classes a day, 25 classes a week, roughly 660 kids in my room every week... This causes a bit of a organization disaster. I have turned into a freak about some things. I have a tool box for each table, the tool boxes have 4 sharpie markers, 4 pencils, crayons, and 2 erasers. I hate when markers, colored pencils, oil pastels... what ever else get into the tool boxes. For one of the projects I did recently, I asked students to use a thin sharpie marker. I knew this was going to get mixed in with the tool boxes and some K was going to use it when they were asked to use a large marker... Uhg! So here is my solution. When they needed a marker they had to come to the front of the room and take off a shoe. They were welcome to take their shoe back when they give me back their marker (in the right place). The kids think it is funny and I make a big deal of their smelly feet. It makes for a fun art day and I am happy when they leave because my tools are where I wanted them to be (most of the time:)).

Great suggestion from Quest Artist Blog

Quest Artists Blog had a wonderful website suggestion. If you are doing a font lesson this would be a great resource. It is called Letter Playground. You should give it a look. It is great! Thanks a ton Ruth!

Three cheers for fine motor activities...

Here's a little fine motor for ya... I was shopping last year at Mills Fleet Farm (yep, the store that has all the 'farm' stuff) and found some of the coolest toys for my mini's. Now some things were a bit of a through back to my childhood, but none the less... still fun for my kids.

1. In the first picture below you see Matisse stringing beads onto a pipe cleaner. She uses a lot of concentration to get every bead on and is very proud of the results.
2. The second picture shows Sawyer with using Fun Fusion (or I've heard it called other things). This took all his concentration too... He was so excited to iron and have the beads all stick together. He wants to make more, so we have to go get some more beads. He use them all up:)
3. The last picture is showing the foam beads Matisse used for the picture on the top. These foam beads were a lot of fun too for Tisse. She strung them on pipe cleaners too.

The kids spent the whole night beading away! It was a fun project for me too... Quite time:)