Trade with Japan

We just heard back from Japan! They received our trade. My 5th grade traded large images with a school in Japan. I learned a lot. I like the project talking about community. It was fun! I don't think I will ever do a trade this large again. I also would never do a water color. It took a long time and for some it was the first time they had the opportunity to mix watercolors and for some... it was a bit challenging. I can't wait to see what they send back our way.

Pacon Paper on Facebook...

For all you art teachers out there... I just got an email today from Pacon paper about their Facebook page. They have a drawing going on for 100 lbs. paper. All you have to do is 'like' their page. I LOVE Pacon paper so you will see my name on the 'like' list... Here is the link if you want to join. (click here)

Zentangle 101

Zentangle baby!! I recently took a class on Zentangles. As I have mentioned I would with some great people and Tana, known to you as MN Art Girl, brought this technique to our attention. We leaned the history and brief technique of Zentangles. I was amazed to see so many great sites out there supporting what I learned and how to teach it. Check out Zentangle.com, Tangle Patterns, and Beez in the Belfry for more ideas of what zentangles are all about. I also was amazed at how much is on Flickr.

The image above is a section of a larger image. Our instructor challenged us to create one tile that will later be put together with other tiles to make a completed image. I will be sure to share that if I get to see it.

Student Teaching...

VID00045, originally uploaded by nch1979.

No I didn't say student teacher... I had my students teaching today. It was so much fun! I have 'art helpers' (5th grade students that come at the end of the day to help with odds and ends). I taught this small group how to print so they helped demo to the rest of the class. I had them draw under the doc cam and explain what they were doing. I asked them to share the vocabulary and demo the project. It was a success and a lot of fun for me!

Watch the short video of the student teaching. I wish I would have had the camera going when he started correcting me and interjecting more technique and vocabulary. It was great!

Doodle 4 Google...

Thanks to Mrs. Leban's Art Blog I was reminded of the next contest I would like to offer for my students this year. I was introduced to it a couple years ago by a parent. I have watched it the last couple of years and this year I hope to have a couple of entries.

Doodle 4 Google, a competition where we invite K-12 students to use their artistic talents to think big and redesign Google’s homepage logo for millions to see. At Google, we believe that dreaming about future possibilities leads to tomorrow’s leaders and inventors, so this year we're inviting U.S. kids to exercise their creative imaginations around the theme, "What I’d like to do someday…"

Check it out and have you kids work on a design too!

Minnesota Teacher of the Year

I'm excited to announce that I have accepted a nomination for Minnesota Teacher of the Year award. From what I understand, the reception is in May. There is 108 teachers who have accepted the nomination this year. Check out the district Staff Happenings for more information on this post.

Printing ATC

Why didn't I think of this earlier? So I decided to have the kids print an Artist Trading Card. This was a whorl wind project. The main focus of this activity was printing and what a print is. I had the kids create a simple snowman so we could draw right onto the foam for printing. They printed right after. All of this fit into one hour. CRAZY...

The next hour I had them we cut the prints to ATC size (2 1/2 x 3 1/2). I let the kids make each of their prints unique by using colored pencils and sharpies on the cards.

Here is the best part... Now I took 3 from each kid, they got to keep the rest... I end up with triple the ATC to send out and the kids get to keep or trade amounts them selves. Duh... printing... What a great idea for a mass trade:)

These cards have gone out to Georgia, Massachusetts, two schools in California, one in Florida, and the Cayman Islands. I have about 100 left. If your school would like to trade with ours let me know... I'll get them out today:)

A Lovely Lesson 3

For this project I did little prep on drawing the head. I wanted the 'raw' view of a 'K'. I was really impressed with all the detail some kids added. Check out Easton's work above. Look at dad, I think he has facial hair. I also wanted to point out the hands on what I think is mom and dad... This overlapping was not prompted either.

This student was given the same instructions. It is always amazing to me how many skill levels I have to reach in a class of 25 Kindergartners. Even though I asked kids to cut a heart and created it into a person, I'm always amazed with all the different looks.

A Lovely Lesson 2

Intro this lesson with a game...

It was fun to talk about how families all look different. We played a game to began with called... "True for me". We all stood in a circle and I would say something like. 'I have a brother...'. If the statement is true for you, you step forward. There is no talking in this game (but for K's that can't be done:)) so you just look to see who it is true for and then everyone steps back into the circle and another statement is said. Other statements I mentioned is, I have a sister, mom, dad, two mom's, two dad's, grandma... and so on. We talked about how every family is different.

Part three in 24 hours!

A Lovely Lesson

Here is a Lovely lesson for February. I was inspired by my mini's at home. I wanted to teach my five year old, Sawyer, how to cut a heart. Of course Matisse (age three) wanted in too. We were talking what we should do with the hearts we cut and Sawyer mentioned he would like to make a person. This idea developed into a family portrait. I loved it at home so much that I brought it to school. Check out the cute, fun, family above by one of my K's.

Here are the inspirations from my household...

Matisse, Age 3 (self portrait)

Sawyer, Age 5 (our family)

I love the cheeks:)

As started writing this post it got much longer then I like my post to be. Check back the next couple of days for more information about this project

Sewing with Vinyl...

Check out the cute little vinyl wallets I made. I'm helping the ladies at the local quilt shop, Quilted Treasure, teaching how to make these little gems. Check out my friend Kristina's blog form more information. All are invited, just put a comment on her blog.

If you want to make your own vinyl wallets check out Martha's website. Or even watch a video of the crafter who makes these...

Shout out to the Art Teachers in District 728

My coworkers are great!! I'm just going to take a few post to brag about how even if you are a one person show (I'm the only visual art teacher in my building) you can still have great colleagues. The other Art Teachers in our district are amazing! We are asked every year to provide art digitally to the District Office for display and when you see that work you know... We are teaching art well. I'm proud to be a part of this group of people and to have a great working relationship with them. Click here to see a sampling of the student art in the District Office.

Super Hero Trade

We are ready to ship out the super hero ATC to Artprojectgirl classroom. This is leading into a future project that I will be doing with my 4th grade this year. I'm going to have them place a super hero in a landscape. This was their warm up and trade:)

We were really excited to see the new post on the ArtProjectGirl's blog. The kids thought it was neat to see them in the hands of others! Check it out!

New Art Blog

One of my friends in our district is just starting an art blog. We have a strong Art Department with lots of good ideas. I know many of you follow another great teacher in our district Tana Puppe, MN Art Gal. Here is another one to follow, and place on your blog roll. She is just getting started but I know she has some great ideas that you are going to want to see in the future. Introducing Leah Schultz, from Double Loaded Paint Brush.

Kids Pop-- iTunes Essentials

I found this Kids Pop as I was looking up some new music for class. As I have mentioned before I love using music as a motivator. The only problem is I'm not as 'cool' as I would like to think:) I have the kids send me suggestions of music on my website but I find many of them are very inappropriate for school. A lot of the times I don' t think the kids even know what the words are about. Anyway, I found this collection to be a very good, clean bunch of songs. Before buying them, I play the snippet that iTunes provides and then if I have 50% of the kids singing along, I know I'm onto something. So check this one out!

Eye on the Prize...

This year I am trying to add more opportunities for Gifted and Talented students in my classroom. I am trying to give as many competitions and challenges as I can to all my students. For some of the contest I have offered them on my website, and then they can enter them on their own. Other contests I have had as an 'after the project' project. You know that short time when some students are done and others are not. I have collected for some of the contest and sent them in as a school. Here is one form Triarco Art. Some of these turned out kind of fun! These works well for a sub plan too.

ArtsConnectEd iPad Challenge

I had fun creating a collection for the ArtsConnectEd iPad Challenge. ArtsConnectEd is a place to explore the combined collections of the Minneapolis Institute of Arts and the Walker Art Center. Search over 100,000 resources in the Art Finder, including works of art, texts, audio, video, and interactive resources. Save and customize items in the redesigned Art Collector. I know... it sounds like an advertisement... but it's not, I just had a lot of fun with this project! Click here and see the collection I created for the challenge.

Ice fishing in Minnesota

My Mini's fishing away... so much fun!

Some of the ATC's are going to warm places. We choose to do our cards with a theme of weather. I wanted to give the recipients a taste of our cold, outdoor, fun. Feel free to use the Google Doc presentation with your class.

Same concepts, different project

My K's are classes have different needs mostly due to size. One of my classes did not make the pine cone project, they create little mosaic trees. I gave them the triangle slab and they added the beautiful mosaic pieces. As the last class did, they finished up with colorful beads for the top. Same concepts, different project.

Update on Winter Clay Project

Here is a follow-up from a previously posted project. After firing these little guys I placed a flexible wire on one hole of the project before the class came.

I experimented with a couple of mediums. This is showing liquid watercolors. It turns out I like traditional water color better for this project. The liquid gets a little too pastel.

Then they are asked to create the pizzaz! BEADS... These are the tiny fusible beads that come in a gallon bucket. I love these to promote fine motor.

I didn't give a lot of direction with beads, I just gave suggestions of pattern... Most kids just enjoyed placing the beads on willy nilly.

Overall, I say this is a re-do. The kids loved them and there were a lot of process to them. I think they turned out sweet!