Showing posts with label how to teach art. Show all posts
Showing posts with label how to teach art. Show all posts

Wednesday, July 13, 2016

Art Teacherin' 101: Episode 10

Hello, art teacherin' types! I'm here with you today because those Back-to-School nightmares have already started. All y'all know what I'm talking about: crowded art room full of kids going absolutely bananas while the classroom teacher waits looking at her watch, shaking her head and tapping her foot. You scream, "Hey! Hey, guys!" about a half dozen times to get their attention only to see Susie cut a hunk off Janie's hair with a pair of razor sharp scissors while Billie and Beau crumple up artwork and break crayons over each other's heads. I wake up with cold sweats in a panic: I MUST GET TO SCHOOL AND PREPARE!
I'm here today to tell you this: DON'T DO IT! Enjoy what's left of your summer. You've earned every drop of freedom. However, I know it's hard to enjoy this time off when the dark shadow of back-to-school supplies at Target is looming over you. Well, lemme set your mind at ease. To prepare for the first coupla days of school, you don't need the prettiest art room, the most prepared lessons or plotted out script. All you need to do is remember one simple word:
This word is the perfect acronym for a fool proof back-to-school formula. Check it out:

W = Welcome 
Welcome those kids to your art room with a heartfelt greeting! It will kick your class off right.

E = Entrance
Make sure your students understand how to "make an entrance". Getting your artists into your room in a calm, quick and quiet manner means you have more time to create!

L = Let Them Know Expectations
I have one rule: Be Kind. However, that one rule holds a lotta weight. So this year, I'm creating a short video to share with my students to quickly walk them thru my expectations. This means, I won't leave anything out when I talk to my dozens of art classes!

C = Create!
Make sure there is time to create on that first day! They've sat and listened to rules and procedures all day long...make your room different. Allow them to get messy on that very first day. They will love you for it.

O = Observe
Be like a scientist on a safari. Observe these art makin' creatures to see who needs to be moved, who needs to have access to different supplies, who needs more peer tutoring. Take all of that information in so you can use it in the future.

M = Make Them Feel Special
Everyone responds to love. Show it in a way that both you and your students are comfortable with. For me that means a lot of side hugs. We also use sign language in my art room. Signing "I love you" is one way we show we care about each other.

E = Exit
Making an exit is just as important as an entrance. I have a habit of getting the kids juiced up, it's just my nature. So I'm working on some new procedures to have them leave calmly. Sign language has really been helping in that department!
So there you have it! Instead of worrying away your summer about those first days of school, just breathe and remember WELCOME. Shoot, even paint yourself a sign if you have to. That's what I did!

In other news, as you do plan for the new school year, check out my buddy Laura Lohmann's ART TEACHER PLANNER! What the what?! Where has this been all my life! Now I have no excuse not to get my life together. At least that's what my life coach tells me. Ya'll best check it out. 
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Tuesday, May 3, 2016

Art Teacherin' 101: Episode 1

Confession: I have been art teacherin' for closing in on 20 years. Yes, I started teaching when I was 12 (insert tongue-out-winkie-face emoji). Despite my vast experience, I still have SO STINKIN' MUCH TO LEARN. I'm reminded of this on the daily. However, because I do have those years under my belt and I have a tendency to overshare on this here blog (as well as YouTube, Facebook, the Twitter and Insta. Guess who is a social media get-about?), it would appear that I kinda/sorta/sometimes know what I'm talking about. So, for that thar reason, I've decided to start vlogging (that'd be video blogging) every Wednesday for a series called Art Teacherin' 101. Here's my first installment!
Each Wednesday, I'll share a short video about something art teacherin' related. Sometimes we'll chat supply orders, clay basics, management tips, you name it. In fact, seriously, YOU tell ME anything you'd like to chat about and we'll do it! You can email me (cassieart75@gmail.com) or just drop me a line in the comments. Also, if you subscribe to my YouTube channel, you'll never miss a breathtakingly amazing episode (insert eyeroll emoji here). 

In other news, not only am I launching Art Teacherin' 101 but also...#WeCanMakeItMay, a super fun photo challenge going down on Instagramz! Which is INCREDIBLY INSANE as I'm currently putting in 12 hour shifts at school to get this art show happening (and I'm not even hanging the artwork...I have SUPER art mamas for that! I'm just that behind on matting, framing, kiln firing, you name it, I'm buried under it). Anyway, I always find that I get the most ideas and the most motivation when I'm the busiest. Are you the same? If so...join #WeCanMakeItMay!
No instagram? No problem (tho you really should get on Insta, it's my most fave social media platform, y'all. Just pictures, no politics. Me likey). Feel free to share your pics on Twitter and Facebook and take me! I'd love to see your pictures. In fact, here's mine from the last coupla days... 
Day 1: Art Room. Did I mention piles on piles? Well, here they is in all their glory. 
Day 2: COFFEEEEE. Multiple times a day. Mostly cuz I lose my cup under stacks of stuff and have to make a fresh pot. Without coffee, I'd be a puddle on the ground.  
Day 3: Art Hands! I only managed to grab a photo of these two cuties after they'd finished painting their cupcakes and were heading out the door. "Don't you want a baby wipe?" ... "Nah, we like art hands!" Ha, me tooooo.

Can't wait to see you on Insta and hear what y'all think of Art Teacherin' 101!
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Monday, February 15, 2016

In the Art Room: Super Hero Selfies

So I've been teaching for almost a million years and I'm not afraid to say that I don't love everything about teaching art. There are some things that got me all feelin' like this when I'm teaching...
 And got my students doing all this cuz they just...can't...
My two least fave thangie-muhgies are teaching figure drawing and perspective. In no particular order of distaste. I'm an equal opportunity dis-liker. 

So, what did I decide to do? Put both things together into one lesson. Because two negatives make a positive, right? Turns out they do in this case as the kids loved this Super Hero Selfie lesson!
This big fat hairy project involved color theory, wax resist, scratch-art paper making, perspective drawing, figure drawing and, finally, the creation of a super hero selfie. I decided to create a video for y'all to view on your own or share with your students. Because each phase of this project might take a class period, I broke this video up into bite sized pieces. So that you can easily find the individual lesson, I've added a header to the video. This way, if you are running a flipped classroom, you can simply have your students move on to the next clip!
 Just to break it down for you:

  • Day One: The students used 12" X 18" pieces of paper, oil pastels and either warm or cool watercolor paint. I like to use 80 lbs white paper.
  • Day Two: We made our scratch art paper! For this, I've found oil pastel works best. Also, when the students go to paint, use slightly diluted black tempera paint. I love Sax Versa Temp paint. We used 12" X 12" squares for this.
  • Day Three: Wooden skewers and templates were used. I had a variety of those shapes you saw in the video for the kids to trace. Many kids struggled with the idea of having the windows go back into space. So we watched a couple of videos and practiced on dry erase boards until we got it.
  • Day Four: We drew the kids in action in P.E.! Once we returned to the art room after about 10 minutes of gesture sketching, we used mannequins to create our own super hero pose. Lines were traced over with Sharpie.
  • Day Five: We started finishing our super heroes, adding color with colored pencil and creating our compositions. This entailed cutting out the buildings and arranging them in a pleasing way with our hero. Early finishers wrote stories about their heroes!

Now with our snow days, my jury duty and holidays, we've really been on the struggle bus to finish these. Mostly because the kids have really gotten into it! They keep getting more elaborate with their heroes, adding side kicks, villains and costumes. 
I love that each phase of this project introduced them to something new.
Here's a peek after the their day. Homemade scratch paper isn't perfect as it sometimes comes off in flakes. But having made it as a kid, I wanted my students to have the same experience. 
Gesture drawing the kids in P.E. was a big hit. It really loosened up the kids and helped them have more interesting poses for their super heroes.
The wooden mannequins were also helpful. You can see this student's original drawing in pencil under her Sharpie'd lines. I love the sidekick!
Check out that pose! I can't take credit, this student draws a lot and is very talented. Not to mention, a big Star Wars fan!
Once together, the kids wrote stories that had funny and elaborate names for their heroes. 


And for once, perspective and figure drawing had me and my students all...

 What are some of your fave perspective and figure drawing lessons? Do you have some tips and tricks? I'd love to hear about 'em as I'm always in need of some help...aren't we all?
Also! Many of you have asked about my videos: how I make them, what equipment I use, etc. I'll be sharing that in a blog post this week so stay tuned! 

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Tuesday, August 11, 2015

In the Art Room: First Day(s) of Art!

Hello, cats and kittens and welcome to the very first day(s) of art! It's been a wild -n- crazy week so far and, y'all, IT'S ONLY TUESDAY. Which means we're having fun, right?! Well, somebody is, anyway. Glue sniffing will do that to a gal. 
For the last couple of years, I've shared with you what my first day(s) of art class look like (go here and here for that, y'all) . I keep saying "day(s)" because my schedule is a lil different than the rest of the art teacherin' universe (I ain't complainin', I'm just sayin'). I see my first and second graders for 30 minutes, twice a week; my third and fourths for 60 minutes, once a week and kindergartentown (who don't start until next week) for 40 minutes, once a week. So! What I've got for you today is what I teach the youngers over the course of two classes and the olders in one class. Make sense? 

Before we get started, lemme just tell you a couple of things I decided at the start of this school year:

* My room doesn't have to be perfect but it does have to be functional on the first day. Y'all, I used to spend entire summers in my art room. Rearranging. Organizing. Making visuals. It was exhausting, time-consuming and I never gave myself a break! This year, I seriously spent a handful of days in my room preparing. I always redecorate my room with a theme (see my Paris-inspired art room and my Asian-themed art room) but this year, I've only just begun updating my decor. Mostly because I knew I didn't need it at the start of the year and I was enjoying every last drop of my summer!

* Introduce the art room, routines and other new stuffs gradually. I used to try to cram in everything in the first couple of art classes. What do you think the kid's first impression of art class was? Rules, Do's and Don't's, Procedures and Zzzzzz-snoozefest. I think that whole deal is flawed. The kids only hear about the first two minutes of whatever it is you are talking about anyway. You go over one million boring-ish things with them all at once and you've lost them! I want their first impression of art class to be a fun one so we are covering those necessary things in baby bites, over several art classes. And doing some fun stuff everyday, like painting on the first day of art class!
So, speaking of talking too much, here's a clip of me talking too much TO YOU about what goes down that first day. I go into more detail about what you see here in the post...but if you have any questions, you can find me in the comments, y'all. 
Those flash cards I mentioned? They say: inspire, art, artist, create, creative, imagine, unique, etc. All words that describe the kids, art class and what artists do! My first thru fourth grade students read these at the door. For kindergarten, I show them shape flash cards. More in this vocab blog post. 
This is the view of my art room from the doorway. This is what the students see when they enter my room. The "teacher chair" is on the right and the other students are to sit on the floor in rows in front of the "teacher" (the quotes are cuz the teacher is a student I picked at the door to both monitor student behavior and play the game "see, think or wonder".)
Here's what the kids seated on the floor see. A view of my giant telly with an image from our Artist Inspiration, Henri Rousseau. When I am finished quizzing the kids at the door, I ask the "teacher" who was the best behaved boy and girl. Those two kids will get to be the host of our end-of-art-class game The Smartest Artist
At this point, I take over and introduce our Word of the Week. What the kids don't know is that I am secretly introducing them to our art class routines as we do this each and every art class! Whenever they hear the WoW, they are to "whoop! whoop" which is one part annoying and two parts fun, depending on your mood.
After talking about our WoW and our Artist Inspiration, I (re)introduce my students to Jes, our mascot/traveling tiger! I made a Jes a couple of years ago (details here) and he traveled around the world like Flat Stanely. It was so fun, the kids loved it...and then the poor dude was shipped to China never to be seen or heard from again (in my imagination, he took a turn to Bangkok and decided it was so fun he never wanted to leave!). So I made a new one and the kids are so excited to send him packing. I'll keep you posted on how that goes as I'm going to need your help!
Then we made a list of all the places we thought Jes should go!
After a quick stretch, we talked about rules. Oh, rules. Double snooze. But we made ours all sorts of wild and crazy which I think I explained in el video. So, we'll just leave it at that!
 We have a new incentive this year with a sticker chart! I've never EVER done a sticker chart, y'all. I'm seriously the most unorganized and inconsistent person you will ever meet in your life. However, I juuuuust might be able to do this one. All the special area folk in my school are on board so we are hoping to do it together. The kids have the chance to earn two stickers by following the two thoughts above. 
At the end of a quarter, whatever grade level class has the most stickers is rewarded with (a super cheap/easy) party! Like a 5 minute dance party at the end of class, popcorn party(tho we have so many allergies, y'all. It might have to be peanut-free/glutenless/flavorless/why-bother-living candy of some sort), you get the idea. Who else does this? Has it worked for you? TEACH ME YOUR MAGICAL WAYZZZZ.
At this point, I wanna hear the kids talk because I'm tired of hearing myself. So I call roll. The kids are to respond with a "Hello, Mrs. Stephens" (which helps the newbies learn my name, to hear it said 20 other times!) and then I ask them a silly question like those seen above. Yesterday, I asked one boy, who was new, when his birthday was and he replied "Today!" So, OF COURSE we had to stop, drop and sing Happy Birthday. The kids love these questions because they are random and ridiculous. Which is always a good time, says me.
 Oh, lookie! I can's! I changed up how I post these and I'm really digging it. Let's zoom in, shall we?
 Big, simple, kid-friendly and with visuals! Thanks, Dollar Tree.
This will also help the kids know what supplies to gather for art projects of the day.
So this was the beginning-of-the-school year decorating that I did which I felt was necessary for that very first day. The cute stuff will come later. And when it does, room tour
Another new thing for us this year, the Look What I Learned Today board! I call on three kids to tell me one thing and jot it down. While I do, the kids do their "ooguh, ooguh, OOOOGUHHH" chat. It's fun to see what sticks with them! 
Our wrap up game at the end of class is The Smartest Artist. The Masterpiece Gallery is for the fun art the kids like to bring in to share. 
 Now, for the younger kids, that was the end of art class on day one. But for the olders, the fun was just starting. I told them their table assignments, sent them shopping at the store, had them drop their supplies off at their seats and meet me at my new demo table (seen in the center). After a quick texture painting and printing demo, the kids set to work!
This year, at Tennessee Arts Academy, the super awesome Laura Lohmann of Painted Paper, talked just about everyone into painting with our students on the first day of art. So we did! 
With a limited palette of yellow, blue, turquoise and white, we painted and mono-printed as many papers as we could until it was time to clean up.
We now have a huge stack of these beauties to use for our upcoming jungle-themed projects! Henri Rousseau, eat your heart out...
 So much happiness.
And a beautiful mess at the end of the day! I can't wait to share with you what we do with our papers but that will just have to wait. Mama needs to soak these feets! 

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