Open House- Welcome Back!

WELCOME BACK STUDENTS!!!

I'm so excited for the first day of school. I hope I had the opportunity to meet many of you at Rogers Middle School open house, Aug. 30th. I will be teaching visual arts to much of the 8th grade and all of the 7th grade this school year. This blog will be a great resource for students, parents and community members to learn outside the classroom more about art. Please become a 'follower' of this blog to get VEEY regular updates of what is going on in class. Thanks for stopping by!

Another room done...

As many of you know I have been working on redoing our new home this summer. Here are two more shots from our game room/sitting room. I got a steel on the furniture, good old IKEA:) A couple of pictures on the wall and we should be set. So now that the major areas in our house are done, I think I can start school:)

Locks of Love

I am so proud of my little Matisse. She has been growing her hair for 3 long years (her whole life). She was ready to donate her hair for Locks of Love. Just had to share this personal note from the Hahn family.

On a side note… One week left of summer vacation. Hoping to make the best of every minute. I am looking forward to my new adventure in middle school!

House Numbers for our New Home...

I wanted to make place our new house numbers on a planter out front. I waited all season for a 'deal' on a big pot and finally scored one! Yah, there isn't any flowers in it, but it will look wonderful next summer. Here's how I did it.

I went to my local craft store and got some sticky vinyl. My thought was to use a Cricut to draw out the numbers but I didn't have access to one the 'minute' I wanted to make this project so I did it the old fashion way, x-acto knife and printed out numbers from. Either way works. I kept both the negative and positive of the number.

I placed the positive numbers on the pot so I could get some really good spacing and see what ti was going to look like. Then I place the negatives around the numbers. Above you see me removing the positive to create a stencil.

I taped off the areas with plastic bags around the numbers. This was to keep it nice and clean as I spay painted the pot (as seen below).

Finally, you will need one sweet little girl to help you peel all the vinyl off the pot. Make sure the spray paint is really dry before doing this part of the project. (Waiting is always hard for me)

I feel the pot is nice and welcoming! Again, can't wait to get flowers in it!

SchoolArts Magazine to the rescue again...

Once again, I ask a question and BOOM! it is answered by SchoolArts Magazine. In an earlier post I asked how to use QR Codes in my classroom and got some wonderful responses. Thanks to all that participated in that. School Arts, Aug/Sept. magazine has a whole article and when you visit the magazine digitally, you have easy links to support the each idea.

If you do not purchase SchoolArts Magazine, you need to! It is current, tackles Art education issues and has something for every grade level and need. I'm a BIG fan!

SPARKed

I'm working on a Google Form to present as a pretest to my middle school students right now. Because I'm making a switch to an older group of students I want to learn what they already know and what they need to learn. Google forms are the perfect solution. I was looking for some kid friendly vocabulary and definitions and ran across SPARKed: Spark in Education. There seems to be a lot to this site, can't wait to explore more!

Fast to Finish: A Skill Builder Series

Fast to Finish: A Skill Builder Series, a group on Flickr.

I go sewing at a quilt shop in Rogers, MN called Quilted Treasures. They have a new class called Fast to Finish. I know there are a lot of local moms and families that look at this blog so I thought I would post this class. I know the teacher and the shop well. If you are a beginner, this is the perfect class for you. Kristina has guide giving you a good estimation of price and time. Check out their site!

http://www.quiltedtreasures.net/classes.asp

Elements of Art

Here is a great video posted on Art Ed 2.0 by Ellen Reynolds. This would be perfect for a first day of school review in an elementary classroom. If you would like to visit the site, please click here.

Ceramics Arts Daily, Great Resource!

Have you visited Ceramic Arts Dailey? Wow! I have learned so much on this site. I would say Ceramics is my week link as an art teacher. I love working with clay but it has been hard for me to find age appropriate, successful clay projects for kids. I have been introduced to several processes and new ideas, artist, and resources on Ceramics Arts Daily. Check it out!

New Kitchen for the Hahn's

Some of you might have noticed I have not been blogging as much as usual. We bought a house at the end of May and have been working hard at making it our own. Here are some images to show you our new kitchen… one of many spaces that needed a little work.

My husband and I did almost everything in this remodel and I am proud to say we are still married:) In fact, we celebrated our 8th wedding anniversary yesterday.

I'm excited to say we have more room then we know what to do with in our kitchen for storage. We live in a very small place before so it is nice to have so much room. Thanks for letting me share a bit about my personal life. It is something I'm very proud of.