Something’s Fishy About This…

I have kind of (really) gotten on a fish kick with some of my classes. My Kinders, 2nd, and 3rd graders have all been working on fish projects. With K and 2, we talked about Henri Matisse and his beautiful fishbowl paintings. And with 3rd Grade, we looked at pictures of koi fish and discussed the story of the koi in the waterfall and how they are symbols for strength and perseverance. I love how fantastic they all are turning out. 

Kindergarten (we read Henri’s Scissors with this!) 

Second grade:

*thanks to Whitney Elementary on Artsonia for the example we used! 

Third Grade:

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Tinker Boxes to blow off STEAM!

Oh man, I have been so excited to share these little boxes of fun with my students and with you all. I love hearing all about STEAM and how other regular classroom teachers are integrating art into their classes. I’m all like, “Welcome to my world. I told y’all it was fun over here!” 

So anyway, I wanted to create some projects and lessons where the ultimate goal wasn’t to take a perfect little picture home to mom and dad to hang on the fridge. I wanted the goal to be one of social interaction and creative design. Teamwork and imagination.  It’s all about the process, baby! 

The thing that finally got me moving on my idea about this was our school’s family engagement coordinator brought me some empty sight word flash card boxes. They were pretty small but they were brightly colored and had a cute little yellow handle. There were only 10. What can a teacher of 650+\- do with 10 little boxes? 

💡 

I started by finding that bag of random stuff that people give you… you know the one. It’s filled with bits and pieces of scrapbook stuff, toys from kids meals, lost puzzle pieces, marbles, dominoes, etc. Yeah, that one. I divided it up between 6 of the boxes (I have 6 tables in my room) and then set to making some prompts. I know I could throw caution to the wind and let the kids just have a go with no prompts but I want to keep a loose grip on the reins.  I think it would be best to have a common goal at each table so we don’t bicker about step 1. 

There are so many great places to find prompts, resources, and ideas for materials for this sort of thing. Here are a few of my sources: 

A Wrinkle in Tech
Stem of the Month (TPT)
Left Brain Craft Brain
Education Closet
So I put this all together, made my prompts, laminated them, and got ready to try it out…

They LOVED it. Of course they did. I say this not because of my amazing boxes of random crap, but because kids love to tinker and play with little things, and use their imaginations. After they completed the tasks, we cleaned up the boxes and then traded for a new box. We only traded once in the 45 minutes of class. 

I shall not lie to you – there were arguments in some of the groups. Kids have strong opinions about stuff, especially what the propeller of an airplane should be made from. But it was opportunity to work on social skills and learning to talk through problems instead of yelling, whining, and fussing. But that’s what’s so great about STEAM and art class in general: it’s applicable to real life. Problem solving (with people and machines), designing, creating, sharing, giving, taking, directing, leading, choosing a good leader, being a great team player, and the list goes on. 

This was a wordy, lengthy post and I apologize. Here’s some pictures: 

A mini rocket and a big rocket

A large house

A robot 

An airplane! 

Some holiday fun…

I love the winter holidays. I love the time together with family and friends. I love the decorations and I love the crafts. An art teacher I follow posted that she is not a Hallmark factory for her school and therefore does not do holiday artwork. I absolutely respect that but I do love making holiday art so I thought I would share some of what we’ve been doing since I haven’t posted in forever. 😳

Elf legs! Ornament piles! And Kinder Rudies! 

Snowmen! 

How I’ve been feeling this season: 

Some up close and personal time with Santa! 

Nutcrackers, Rat Kings, Ginger houses, and more Santa! ❤
Merry Christmas from the TinyArtRoom! 🎄👩🏼‍🎨🎅🏼

Dia de los Muertos Festival

As much as I love the traditions and art of Dia de los Muertos, I’ve never really been around or involved in any legitimate celebrations. I read about it. Watch movies about it. Make art with my students about it. But I’ve never had an opportunity to see it and be a part of it in real life. All that changed on Sunday. 

I found out about a Dia de los Muertos festival happening in Charlotte. It was held at the Levine Museum of the New South and it was great! There were T O N S of people there so we didn’t get to do everything. But we looked, and read, and observed, and listened to everything we could. 

Before we even walked in the door, we were greeted by La Catrina! Photo op!

They had an altar competition and there were many entries. They were all big and bright and heartfelt. 

I loved all the symbolism found in the altars. They even inspired my daughter to make one to her cat and her great grandmother that both recently passed away. 

We made sugar skulls and played games and colored calaveras. We bought some pan de Muertos too but that was eaten pretty quickly! 

One of my favorite parts was when the music started and we were able to watch the singers and dancers from the balconies of the second floor. 

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After a long day at the festival, I went back to my first love (French everything) and ate crepes and macarons in Romare Bearden Park. It was a perfect day and I enjoyed spending it with family, learning about a different culture together. ❤️

¡Dia de Los Muertos!

Day of the Dead is here. It’s one of my very favorite traditions and the kids love it too! Check out some of the projects we’ve been working on in honor of this special holiday. 

Rainbow Tweet!

Kinders are going to be learning colors and color order next week. I saw a picture on Pinterest for this idea but the link doesn’t lead to a lesson or the picture for it – at least not anymore. Shout out to the creator! 

I think this is a great way to introduce some painting skills to those babies who haven’t ever held a paintbrush and work on rainbow order/color wheel at the same time. I’ll post results next week! 😎

Here are a few results! I love them. 😍

Happy New Year!

Wow, it’s been a long time and I feel terrible about that.  I’ve gotten quite a few new followers since my last post and y’all are probably wondering why in the world you bothered.  Well, the holidays were rather busy – busier than normal – and I got a new phone and haven’t had access to my old photos that I took of my holiday art and boards.  I think I did share some on Instagram before I got my new phone so if you are an Insta-user, check out tinyartroom there.

So, right before our Winter break, I started all my classes on their Art to Remember projects.  A few grades finished and a few are finishing this week.  All of the projects are turning out great and I have two new Art to Remember projects that I’m trying out this year.

Kindergarten was one of the classes that finished before the break so I was looking around on Pinterest and my favorite art blogs (see the blogroll to the right) to see what I could find for them that would ease us back into the swing of things.  For some of these kids (and me) I feel like it’s a second First Day of school so we need to tiptoe back into it.

I found this awesome project over at this cute little French art blog called Le Petites Têtes de L’Art which Google translated to “Small Heads of Art” so… let’s just stick to stumbling over the French pronunciation.  Anyway – the kids loved making this so much.  At the end of class, I asked them what they liked so much about it.  They all said some version of  “I liked the scribbling” and “I like cutting the paper.” So, basically they liked being given a goal but allowed to go about achieving it how they wanted.  Ahhhh… choice based art.  I promised them we would do more of this.  🙂

For now, check out the results of today’s work:

   
   
   
    
   
 

Fall, Halloween, and El Dia de Los Muertos

Lots of fun projects happening the last couple of weeks! 

   
    
   
 Deep Space Sparkle always has amazing ideas. I adapted her 5th grade lesson for my first graders and they absolutely loved it!   

    
    
Kinders worked hard on their folk art kitties! Thanks to Art Projects for Kids for this great idea!    
    
    
   

Folk Art Friskies

I’m looking forward to starting these precious folk art style black cats with my kinders next week.  We are getting in lots of practice with painting, lines, shapes, and colors this first quarter.  I found this lesson on Art Projects for Kids – check out her original post here.  It goes well with the Halloween season but if you don’t do holiday art, you could always do another animal or do it at a different time of year.  I’ve posted my step by step pictures and I’ll post their works of art (which are sure to be way cuter and filled with lots of personality) when we are finished.

  
   
    
 

Some finished products…

Most students had a difficult time with the border. They grasped the idea of a pattern but put in a ton of lines to create their blocks so it took them forever to color. I did learn to tell them to use their thumb as a spacer when creating them. That helped a little. 

   
    
    
   

Whew…

In the words of Salt-n-Peppa, “what a day what a day what a mighty good day”…or something like that. 😁 

The first day of the 2015/16 school year is over. It was a bit crazy but overall good. 

After a fun and engaging Prezi about expectations (haha) we all made a hand to go on our “We have all hands on deck at CES!” board. By the end of the week we will have almost all 600+ students represented! I just hope that the kids can feel how much we care about and love them. I know, for me, they are 100% the only reason I keep coming back.