literacy in the art room

If there is one thing I love even more than art it is books. Picture books to be exact...so I guess that is books and art. But I am the most avid reader I know aside from my husband (who is reading next to me right now). Thank goodness I find joy in pursuing kids books because our school improvement plan over the last three years has focused intensely on improving student literacy, particularly student writing skills.

While I do make attempts to get the students writing during my class (as much as one can when already trying to cram an art project into a 20 min long class), I've decided to focus on integrating children's literature into my curriculum. I think using books to ground your curriculum comes with some wonderful benefits.

*Starting class with a book gives students a set structure. It gives students who struggle with transitions a time to calm themselves and focus before attempting an art task.

*Reading a book gives all students at least some background to draw from for the technique or theme you are working with. I feel it levels the playing field a bit.

*It is excellent for my English language learners (and all students) to hear a story being read aloud with correct pronunciation, timing and expressiveness.

*Unlike a single art poster, you average picture book offers 10+ visual images of inspiration

*Reading stories in the art room introduces students to new authors and makes them more aware of using the pictures that accompany a book's story to help them decode the content of the story.

*It's fun!

There are so many amazing books out there and I know lots of us use picture books in our curriculum. There is one book that I have recently stumbled upon that I have never seen discussed on any art blogs and it is called Alphabesties: And Other Amazing Types.

All the animals in this book are made up with the letter that their name starts with in different fonts. I think these are so cool and plan to use this book for both younger and upper (middle school) projects. I would really like to tie in the idea of contour line drawing and then filling the space with typography. Older students will need to fill their drawing with descriptive words along with one letter.

I can't wait to see what wonderful art this book will inspire! If you are looking for this book at your library here is a hint, I did not find it in the art area, but instead in the language area.

Lessons for 1st week October

Steal, steal, steal, maybe a I stole a lesson from you!
We are still focusing on shape, line and pattern as our elements of art. We are also practicing our oil pastel and watercolor skills. No tempera paint till we show good control with our watercolor painting.

Kinder: Last week we read "The Dot" and made dot stamps. This week our dot will go for a walk and read "Lines that wiggle."

We will make a chart with different types of lines and make them with our hands
lines that go up and down, lines that go side to side, lines like a slide (diagonal) lines that make little hops, lines that make big jumps, lines that zig zag, and spin around and wiggle.
I don't think we are ready to do a oil pastel and watercolor line resist, we will save it for later on.
We will go back to our tables and play with string. Then we will practice drawing our lines as a group on chart paper. Finally if we have time each table will get a new chart paper, toy cars and one tin of paint that matches their table color. They will drive their cars into the paint and then leave tire tracts on the paper to make lines.

1st grade: no school Friday so no 1st grade this week

2nd: I like this Jasper Johnson inspired idea over at We Heart Art

There is no way to get through the alphabet in 27 min in a reasonable number of weeks.
Instead I will pint up regular size paper divided into 12 rectangles. 3 rows of 4. In row one the students need to draw a geometric shape in each box, in row two they need to draw a different type of line in each box, in the last row they will draw a different pattern in each box. We will then go over our lines with oil pastel and start painting each square showing control with our paint. NO black paint as it muddies our other colors.

3rd grade: I love the book Matthews Dream. So dose Teach Kids Art who has this great lesson
this is a great project because it has us working with shape and thinking about overlapping which I will need the kids to be awesome at for our next project. We will use standard size paper and each student will need to include these shapes:
square, triangle, circle, rectangle, oval, diamond, crescent and three organic shapes the kids make.
Each shape must overlap the other. Depending on time we will either use markers or oil pastel and paint it. Our third grade students are spaz monsters so I think we will have to stick with marker.

4th: Used shape to make falling boxes last week and worked with colored pencil. I realized we never use colored pencil (mostly because my classroom is not equipped with a real pencil sharpener argg low income arggg) I think we are done with shape and are ready to move onto line and pattern. We will do a modified zen tangle. I am inspired by this project from Blue Moon Pallet. Tami is the only other k-8 teacher I have encountered and she has awesome lessons to boot!

We will follow her project to the tee. Kids will go over their lines in marker and then color it in with colored pencil

5th grade: Will keep working on our op art circles. the 5th grade class I see twice a week is getting the yearly bike safety class so for their second project we will have a little side lesson learning how to draw a bike and design our own bike.

6th-8th-
Last week we finished our rhythm and movement drawings that I will post soon. They turned out so well. Then for a change I showed them how to draw a large, simple sunflower, ala Van Gogh. I then told the kids they would paint without brushes and I broke out the plastic butter knives the left over acrylic paint and are trying to paint like Van Gogh. Some kids are lovings this and some are not. I keep telling them to imagine they are making peanut butter and Jelly Sandwiches. We will play with this project for one ore day. Then it is time for our color wheel unit. I'll detail that in another post.

OH one last thing, I found this linked on the crafty crow...soooo cool! Website is Zakka life

top 20 they say...

(summer camp, not my school)

On Friday night I noticed my blog follower-ship has gone up a lot this week. That's odd I thought (brb one of the chickens is walking around in the kitchen...woops, I forgot to close the door, kitchen is now chicken free) anyway, why would all these people be joining my blog? I have barely posted this year and I doubt that many people want to know the gory details of loosing a parent. While reading comments I found a note telling me that:
"I recently compiled a list of the Top 20 art blogs for educators, and I just
wanted to let you know that you made the list! It
is published online at
http://www.onlinedegrees.org/top-20-art-blogs-for-educators/"

Well that explains that. I don't fancy myself a top 20 anything but if they want to include me, what the heck and if you want to burn some time in your day reading my blathering then go for it:) It's just funny, I never expected anyone to read this. I started the blog because I always loose my paper lesson plans and lesson plan book. I figured it would be harder to misplace the Internet. 50 more people read my blog now then the last time I posted my basic info/warning list: Enjoy:

1. This is a personal blog, not a school blog. At times I will talk about non art things
2. If you don't like something; a project, a belief I have, whatever, then do as I ask my students to do..." If you don't have something nice to say keep it to yourself" and I will do the same
3. Steal my lessons, most likely I stole them from someone...I probably already stole some from you
4. No I will not give specifics on the school I teach at

About me:
I'm a female
I'm rapidly approaching 30
I'm married
I have no kids
I have a dog and four chickens
I live in rainy Portland, OR
I teach at a K-8 school
I have taught in both high schools and middle schools
I got me one of dem master degree thingies
I like to sew, read and belly dance in my free time
I love to eat
I'm five feet tall and am referred to as "little shark" by the staff at my school
I don't take s*&t from kiddos
That's why I am able to successfully teach at one of "those schools"

Yes my school is everything a movie producer dreams of when doing a feel good teacher/student movie:
we got your low income
we got your drugs (kids and parents)
your weapons
your cussing and racial issues
your broken homes
parents in jail
Little budget
A falling apart playground
We feed into the neighborhood HS that graduates less than 50% of the students each year (yah that's depressing, looking at your class of middle school students and knowing only half will graduate high school)
3 DHS workers dedicated to just our school! How cool are we!
92% of our kids enjoy a nice free breakfast and lunch...and "dinner" thanks to the government
The dental van comes to see us twice a year
Our school has five official languages and 17 more unofficial languages
A super cool Spanish immersion program (no sarcasm with this one)
2 life skills classes (nursing)
A multi national, multi cultural staff and student body
Some kick ass teachers
Some teachers that need to retire
Some teachers who need to find a new line of works
And one little, bossy art teacher who is going to run the best damn art program possible.
And a lot of kids who are trying their best, despite all the obstacles they come across, to be great kids. See I told you the movie producers would love it!

The End

Some art math

(thanks Mr. Demuth! You must have know I would want to write this blog one day;)


So this afternoon I am a football widow. I figured I would get my lessons done for the week and got to wondering what we were doing this time last year. Thanks to my trusty blog I was able to go back and look... and then some. As I took some time to re-read some of my blogs from last fall I was struck by how I am having the same thoughts and problems yet again this year. The funniest part is reading about how upset I was at the schedule changes made last year. Well guess what...the schedule is still my biggest problem and, though I did not think it possible, it is even WORSE this year.

Last year I saw the kinder and 1st graders back to back, 3 classes in 90 min. (all other grades came for 40 min) During that time I had to walk them to the gym, pick up my next group and get back to my art room. This left very little time for cleanup, drinks, bathroom, dealing with behavior issues...so on and so on. Anyway while the elective teachers did not like this way of doing things apparently the school admin thought it was great. So guess what? Now ALL the classes k-5th come back to back to back. Oh and to make it more fun, 3 classes rotate through 3 electives in only 80 min this year. As Kermit said on the Muppet Show YAHAHAHAHHA!!! (sarcasm people) Yes that is 26.5 min per class and I still have to walk them to the gym and pick up the next class in that period of time.

Lets do some art math:
Classes come in, 5 min to get seated and go over expectations and quiet; for 2nd and 3rd class in each rotation this 5 min includes switching classes (21.5 min left in class)
5-10 min to explain project/ demo/ read inspiration story/ pass out supplies (16.5-11.5 min left)
Work time (find x)
Clean up, put away supplies, art on drying rack, line up for hall (5 min)

16.5-5 = 11.5 min to work OR 11.5-5 = 6.5 min

So there you have it ladies and gents 11.5 to 6.5 min to work on a project each class period.
Our efforts to talk to the school admin have been fruitless so far. The VP has pointed out that I see all the 2nd-5th grade students TWICE a week for 26.5 min at a time. I pointed out that after getting settled down, taking out supplies and cleaning up, that we would get a LOT more done in only ONE 40 min session. The other elective teachers concur. The admin shrugs. ARGGGG.

Needles to say it is taking a long ass time to get anything done this year. Not only am I behind from being out of town during my Dad's funeral, but it also is taking at least twice as long to get through projects this year.

This my friends, is babysitting during which time we dabble in art, this is NOT art education.
Hence I have scratched my complex plan for the year of "Why do people make art". No time for deep philosophical thought. Instead the first part of the year will focus on the elements and principals of art and the second half will focus on artists from the 20th century. And at the end of the year. I'm outta here. It's either a new school or a year off to "re-assess" my carer choice.

beginings and endings

I haven't posted in a while so I doubt this will be short.

Over labor day weekend I went back to Colorado to visit with my dad and mom. I was sad to find my dad had gone downhill in a few weeks. I took him to radiation and chemo and stayed awake till 2 or 3 am each night sitting with him while he tried to nap through the discomfort, the anxiety and the difficult breathing that the tumor in his lungs was creating. I feel pained remembering him laying in his hospital bed in the middle of the living room taking deep, struggling breaths. I kept thinking to myself, "this is so unfair." Unfair that my dad was "healthy" less then two months ago, unfair that when I left two weeks earlier he seemed like he would be ok for a long time, unfair that my dad would be suffering with cancer, unfair that he would die at 63, unfair that he would never meet his grandchildren or play golf again or go eat bar-b-q or go fly fishing, on and on it's not fair.

Despite his decreased health my mom, my dad and I though (or were in denial) that it would be ok for me to go start the school year for two weeks and then come back home.

I few back to Oregon on Monday night and cried. I got up on Tuesday morning and Wednesday and taught my middle school classes and helped get the kinders and 1st get settled in. On Thursday morning at 5:30am my mom called in tears. My dad had died in his sleep.

I now know what it means to be in shock. All I could manage to say was, "oh." Shock is to be numb.

My husband told me not to go to work, but I felt so numb and disconnected to the fact that my dad had died that I went anyway. I told my principal and vice principal who both got watery eyes on my behalf. They told me to go home. I said I wanted to be the one who told my students. I had to leave sub plans.

I told my middle school students. A few cried for me, a few cried for their own lost friends and family, we talked about why my dad had died, how I would be gone and I honestly answered their questions about how I was feeling. I told them it did not feel very real. I spent the next day getting ready to leave, preparing a two weeks worth of sub plans and finding someone who could be in my classroom that long.

Thank god for Sparrow. She was amazing. She was the first face my K-5th students saw this year for art and she did a great job getting them started.

I returned to work this past Wednesday and am trying to get my brain in the game but everything feels slow and foggy. It still feels like my dad is not really gone and that I'm watching this series of events happen to someone else. I think my art posts will be more sporadic for a while.

Please keep in mind that the reason I keep this blog is to record the lessons I'm doing and have a place to journal about teaching in a urban art room. I love seeing what other art teachers are doing and I support art education anywhere in any form.

We already work in a job area where people question our validity and we lack support, lets support each other; not tear each other down. Judge not least ye be judge....aka if you don't have something nice to say to me....move on along and I will show you the same courtesy.