Monuments

The third graders talked about character traits and monuments today. We talked about how people are inspired by other people and why. We looked at pictures of monuments, particularly in our community like these awesome president heads!

I asked the kids who inspired them and they started naming teachers in our school!!!…so they drew them on poster board Somehow our principal ended up with one ear and no nose…that will be corrected

Next week they will mix torn toilet paper with glue to make a sticky goop to create a 3d relief for the monuments

One group started today with the PE teacher’s head. I told them to close their eyes and feel their face. What parts stick out? Those are the parts they added the paste to.

I LOVE the texture! Please give me your opinions..should we paint them with colors or with white and gray for shading to teach value?? I am going to glue a dowel to the back and stick it in a white box to stand them when they are finished! Can’t wait to post the finished product!

Ok I just had to share this! My husband found this mushroom in the yard…ummm is it just me or do you see a heart shaped mushroom with a peace sign in the middle?? My husband just kept it because he thought it looked “weird”

Marbleized Peacock

Begin with some shaving cream in a tray or directly on your tables

These liquid watercolors are one of my most favorite thing in the art room!


Choose your color scheme and drip onto shaving cream.

Use the end of the brush upright, touching the bottom of the tray, and swirl around!



Lay the paper down on the shaving cream, rub it gently, and peel off

use a piece of cardborad or styraphone to scrape off the shaving cream and reveal the beautiful print. This is when students OOOOOOOOHH and AHHHHHH!!

Then I usually let the students play in the shaving cream at their table. You can continue to make prints, they just won’t have quite the contrast as the first one. They will leave your room smelling fresh and clean!


I then cut out circles from different warm color prints.

I painted black circles at the bottom and made the eye with oil pastels. I thought the picture needed something in th bottom corners…

So I mixed up some green and yellow and placed the corners on it, to fill in those empty white spaces and glued everything together for the finished product!

Back to school!!

Her face was the perfect visual description of how I felt about starting school.This was the day of “Meet the Teacher”

Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE my job, but I LoOoOoVE being with my babies. The end of summer is a hard transition! But its also exciting and NEW and FUN!!

Is it any coincidence that they were the first kids to find the art station??

Needless to say, they were in much brighter spirits at 6:00am the next morning for the first day of school! They both love their teachers!

Here is my classroom! Finally decorated! I used the circle paintings as wallpaper for more color! We are doing the rainbow self-portrait mural for the first week project. I haven't done it in a few years and thought I would bring it back. The mural will be a vibrant colorful display to get the kids excited about art!

Here are a few different hairstyles we went over for the self portraits

My theme for the year is BE INSPIRED!!!

I was inspired by this Vermeer painting to create this wall display. We are the BCE “BISON.” It made for some good conversation about where people get their ideas for art and how I want to base my curriculum around the things that inspire them! The little ones loved fining “whats the same/different about the two artworks!

This box is my new “Good Behavior” positive incentive for Art. Kids get a ticket for following our class agreements and put it in the box for a chance to win the drawing. I will draw one kid from each grade (every two weeks or so..) to get their picture on the wall as a “Featured Artist” and have their favorite piece of art displayed in the “BCE Smartest Artists Gallery” on the wall outside my door! So far so good!!

After nine years of teaching I have tried so many different incentives and the best ones end up being the ones that are the lowest maintenance for me. This doesn’t exactly fall into that category, but I think it will be fun!!

We can’t hang anything from the ceiling, so I laminated the table color signs and just taped them to each table

I hope everyone has a blessed first week back! I love reading all of your blogs with new ideas and seeing into your classrooms for ideas and inspiration!!! ~Natalie~

Organization is not my bag!

I just wanted to share with you an awesome thing I found out about this year. If you are an artist, chances are, you are organizationally challenged like myself. We are right brained people. Organizing takes left brained people. Unless you are ambidextrous, like my friend Hailey-Ann who gave me this perfect little tip.
These supply caddy’s and containers come in sets of the spectrum. Yes!! Every set has six of each in the colors red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple!! I have 6 tables set up in the color wheel order, so it works perfectly!!
These caddy’s above have a perfect spot for three glue to fit and scissors and markers.
Heres the link:
http://www.orientaltrading.com/teaching-supplies/teacher-resources/storage-a1-501514-3-1.fltr

these fit crayons

and these for pencils!
This way, I can have my table helpers get whatever they need for that day off the counter and they know which one is theirs.
I hope all of you are having a wonderful first week of school!!


This is how I felt after kindergarten today with 32 little munchkins and just me….can you feel me?

Back to School Ideas!

Hello blogging world art teacher friends!!! For some of you, the summer is coming to the close and the fresh smell of empty rooms and blank planners is near!!! I am in need of some great beginning of school activities. I have posted below my all time favorite first week of school activity for you!!! It was easy to set up, mess free, and made a BEAUTIFUL display (great way to start out the year) I would LOVE now, for you to post YOUR beginning of the year activities for inspiration!!! I love reading all of your blogs and use so many of your fabulous ideas!!!
If your blog is not on my blog roll PLEASE comment or e-mail it to me so I can add you!! Ok, the lesson below is the one i was talking about. It didn’t publish earlier so here it is. I posted this last year but here it is again!
This was my first day of school project this year. It was a great way to learn their names and talk about how special and different everyone is! I did this with grades kinder through fifth and they ALL loved it! Since the students are learning the color wheel I thought it would introduce color relationships in a fun way. Each table had a different color . One color. Red table had red, blue tables had blue, yellow had yellow, and so on. Since they had markers, pencils, and crayons, it allowed for various shades and hues of the same color. The 4th and fifth graders could use 2 colors; one color and one analogus color to make the intermediate color transitions in the mural from one color to the next. For the border I put butcher paper on each table and let kinder and first draw and paint different kinds of lines with their lines and color lesson, then cut it into strips to use for border. I glued all the index cardstogether on a looooooong piece of butcher paper in color order to create the mural.

We talked first about drawing your face. Oval head, then ears in the middle, then hairline from one ear to the next, line for the part of the hair if its a girl, eyes where the ears are in the middle, then nose half way b/w eyes and chin, and lips half way b/w nose and chin. We looked at many different hairstyles and how to draw them from the hair line.