What is happening!

So many things have happened and my poor blog has taken a hit! Late in the year last school year we were told that we were not going to be able to use outside blogs and the school would be introducing something new, so don't go to lots of work on the new year - it's going to change! I was right in the middle of changing up my site with tabs when this news came out and I decided to figure out what was coming.

At the same time I had big problems with my google account. I had used my school email to set up my account and blog and now had a problem with 2 accounts? The tech coordinator was playing around with maybe doing a corporate account and anyone who had an account already would have problems with this. My problem was that the schools account blocked several programs to use, one of them being Blogger!

So.... long story short, this has been a task to save my blog before I had to delete one of the accounts with my school e-mail. It had to be the one that had my blog because the corporate account takes over! I really thought I saved it and life could go on so I could use this blog as more of a site where I keep my ideas of lesson plans and can follow the awesome blogs that I follow. What I found today is - all of my pictures are gone because of the closed account!!! My heart stopped for a second, but this has been such a pain with one thing after another, that it really doesn't surprise me. So, now I have to figure out what I'm going to do. I'm starting from square 1, but I do have the name, blogs I follow and outline of the blog. Hmmm, this could take awhile...

2nd Grade Paper Plate Weaving

2nd grade finished their paper plate weaving projects. I put them up in the hallway yesterday and really got to look at them. They turned out great, here's some examples:

4th Grade Collage

Here's a little Animoto video of the 4th grade project. These are a lot of fun! The students used construction paper to make a self-portrait, but they had to be reading their favorite book!

A few more examples:

Displays

Sorry - 2 posts in one day after weeks of nothing! I just got some artwork hung in the hallways and feel the need to post some pics.

Kindergarten and 5th grade have artwork displayed. I finally got my excel sheets the way I want them and now can easily mail merge them to a label form so that I can label all work with first and last name as well as teacher name. I think I should also add the grade level and maybe the table name just to make it easier for me to get them back to the students. But for now just teacher name to get them back to the correct class, I'd hate to have lots of art hanging around with no artist to claim them!
These are Kindergarten Shape People using crayons and watercolor:

5th grade crazy hair days:

The people in the window are famous people who like to check out our room on a regular basis...

Square 1

We've been working on Square 1 projects for that past cycle. I have exactly 3 classes with these kiddos on this project because they have to be sent in on a certain date. I'm a little stressed about getting all of them done, but they are turning out great:
Kindergarten is doing painted hands made into horses. After the first class I decided to pair up 5th grade with these little guys in order to not miss a step.

I had them sign their name and then add 2010 - we won't be adding the date again!!! I put the numbers on the board, but forgot that numbers are really difficult for many young ones this early in the year.

1st Grade are doing happy suns. The sun should be done in warm colors and around the outside should be cool colors.

2nd grade are working on self portraits. We read about Frida Kahlo and used a template for the shape of the head so that they couldn't be too small or too big.

3rd grade are doing animals. These animals have pattern in them and we looked at the illustrations in I Feel a Foot by Rinck and van der Linden.

4th grade are doing radial designs. These are super cool, but I'm also really worried about the time line! These must be done!!! Next year I'm starting these day 1! Stress....

5th grade gets to choose their design. Since this is our first year doing Square 1, some of them are choosing to do animals like the 3rd grade because they really liked that design. 

I can't wait to see the finished, published pieces! I will also breath easier when they are all finished and mailed off!

Kindergarten Shape People

Have you read that I've been away from teaching art for 9 years and was teaching computers during this time? Well, there are times when I really remember that I feel like a first year teacher again. I wanted to do shapes with Kindergarten and decided to do shapes that they make into people. My great idea was that they could draw the basic outline in thin markers and then we would paint them with tempera paint. As I thought this through (after I had started the project of course) I realized that this just might be beyond what the kindergarten can do at this point and maybe I should wait until later in the year. There is NO way that I could tell the kids that we would not paint these, so I decided that we would go over the marker with crayon and then do a watercolor wash on top. This is just stringing along the project and I really wish I would have just done it correctly in the first place because some of the kids are having a hard time switching gears with it and just scribbling color all over their shape people! Oh the things that I have forgotten that are coming back to me! So, here's some of the pictures where the kids added crayon in order to do the watercolor resist:

4th Grade Op Art

Remember those black and white Op Art pieces that were just pencil lines in my first post about projects in progress? Well, we've gone through a ton of Sharpie markers, but some of them are finishing up and they look really nice! Here's just a few:

This lesson plan was found at: http://theartofeducation.wordpress.com/