Please vote for my First Grade student this week!

Great News!  Eddie1242, from Robert T. Capeless Elementary School, has been selected as a finalist for this week's "Artist of the Week" award for the PreK-3rd age group.  The finalist who receives the most online votes between now and Saturday November 1 will be selected as our "Artist of the Week."

To view the finalists and cast your vote, simply click on the link below.  Voting is limited to one vote per computer per day for each age group!

    http://www.artsonia.com/aotw/vote/0/33506010

The "Artist of the Week" will be featured on the Artsonia homepage and will receive a commemorative plaque from Artsonia.  In addition, Blick Art Materials has generously donated $100 gift certificates to the winning teachers and $50 to the winning artists.

All fan club members from Robert T. Capeless Elementary School have just been sent an email inviting them to vote, but we encourage you to personally spread the word at school, making sure all your students cast their votes right away!

Thank you for submitting your artwork to Artsonia and helping every child be an artist!

Sincerely,
Your friends at Artsonia

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Shooting Stars

 

 I'm not sure where I saw the motivation for this project so I apologize to the person who inspired me for not crediting them. Here's what I did:  I grabbed several of the "place mats" that were used for protecting tables during painting last year and headed to the die cut machine which I used to cut the stars.  Using Elmer's liquid glue to insure a strong tack, stars were glued into a corner of the black construction paper.  The lesson was for Kindergarten with a focus on line recognitions and appropriate line names.  Students drew a horizontal, a vertical,  and a diagonal line.  Then in between these were added zig zag lines, curvy and swirly lines.  All the lines were drawn with a white charcoal pencil.  Students then colored in the negative spaces using construction paper crayons.  The background paper was black construction paper!  This was great practice for color control and filling in the spaces.  I think the Kinders did a terrific job!

Life has been busy!

I've been absent way too long but it's not because things haven't been happening in the art room.  This month the focus was on shape, line and color across the grades.  Some of the projects are repeat project and a few were some old tried and true that I hadn't gotten to in the last several years.

Multiple projects from across the grades.

Above is the bulletin board in one of the schools where I tried to display a few projects
from each grade. You will notice spider webs done with a watercolor wash from
 Kindergarten where the focus was on line names and directions identification.  
Both third and fourth were creating observational drawings.  Fourth
 created the harvest still life and third were drawing skeletons.  For both 
grades the focus was "seeing like a scientist" and drawing only things as 
they are seen rather than what we know to be true. This proved to be a bit 
challenging for both groups so a two drafts were created for each project with
 personal and group critiques to help students to raise the bar with their drawings.

Second grade students created line/pattern leaves with scratch art paper.  This is a project from several  years ago.  I had used the die cut machine to cut out maple leaves and the left overs were filed away.  Since there were enough for my two classes, I decided to pull it back out again.  Since 2nd grade had never used scratch art paper before, I had them practice drawing lines and patterns on a small scrap of the paper first.  After mastering the technique, the stem was extended onto the leaf and veins added to created sections.  Each section was filled with a different line pattern.

Finally, a few photos of the value webs from 5th grade.  This project is a twist on one from Art with Mr. E that was popular a few years ago and you still find on pinterest.  Instead of plotting along a line and then creating the value curves, I had students draw a spider web and add value around the web.  Most students opted to add a spider using oil crayons once they were finished.  These were especially striking.  

So that will catch you up a little with the going ons.  I'll try to post a little more regularly in the future.

Pronunciations!!!

One of my biggest pet peeves is getting corrected by an entire classroom of Kindergarten students for mispronunciation of names.  Now mind you, it doesn't bother me if the child whose name I am saying corrects me, in fact I appreciate their help in getting it correct.  What does bother me is when you have an entire class begin to shout at you.  First, I can't understand the chaos of all those voices and secondly, it just seems a little disrespectful.  I grew up in the Southern states and we were taught to always show respect to our teachers.  I would have never spoken up and corrected my teacher for anything even if it was saying my name incorrectly.  Kids today are different.  I've lived in the Northeast for over 30 years but my southern upbringing still creeps into my enunciation especially when it comes to some vowels.  Anyone who grew up in the south knows that pen and pin are pronounced the same.   Correct me if I am wrong Mr. E. or Cassie Stephens!!!  So sometimes these "different" names up north are a real challenge for me.  There is the student whose name I thought was pronounce like the thing a beauty queen wears on her head, a Tiara, you know?  It's not spelled that way but I thought that was what she said on the first day and now all the kids are correcting me.  I'm not sure how it is really pronounced.   And, then there is the cute little girl name Sawyer.  I think Tom Sawyer and pronounce it the same way but apparently that is not correct.  Still can't get that one right either.  That's just the beginning of the long list of names I continue to botch and repeatedly get corrected for.  So what is your take on all this?  How would you handle this in your classroom?  Feedback appreciated....help me!!!

Rethinking the entire process!

Back in August, Nic Hahn from Mini Matisse posted a video on critique and feedback from Ron Berger at Presumpscot Elementary in Portsmouth, Maine.  The video was the story of Austin's Butterfly.  She encouraged her followers to both watch the video as well as share it with their students.  I have share it with all my students grades 1 - 5 with terrific results.  Here it is if you haven't yet viewed it for yourself.

This is how this video has restructure most of my teaching for this year.  To begin with, all my students are regularly reminded to "see like a scientist".  They draw what they see not what they know.  This week we began observational drawings in 3rd and 4th grade and students immediately began to assist one another with positive critiques and to talk about changes they would make with their next drafts.  I love the impact one short video has had on the way my students are thinking about their art making.   I am challenged to expect more from my students and recognize that I can encourage them to grow this year as artist as they also challenge themselves to improve on their skills and to cast aside the "I can't" mentalities of the one time lesson.

One of our first attempts have been observational drawings of a harvest still life and a skeleton.

4th grade Harvest Still life

4th grade student Harvest Still Life

3rd grade Skeleton Drawing

3rd grade Skeleton Drawing