New Beginnings...

What does an art teacher do when she can't sleep and it's 1:40 a.m.? She writes on her blog, of course. I have some beginning of the year pictures that I wanted to post, so I will do just that. My camera was stolen, and I still haven't replace it, so the pictures are from my phone. I will do my best to get some visuals to you :)


The students in all grades have been hard at work. We've only been in school for six days now. We have spent a lot of time on seating charts (and more seating charts and more seating charts), getting to know names, and even bringing in more tables to accommodate more students. The more, the merrier, I say! That's more students who are exposed to the arts.


The 8th graders are calm and cool. I have them first thing in the morning. I have had these babies for 2+ years now and know and love them like my own. I can already tell that I'll miss them when they move on to high school. They are working quietly, and they know what to expect.


The 7th graders are a bit more energetic. They, too, know what to expect, for the most part. They are having to get moved around just a bit, and I'm having to remind them of the rules, but, if you look around my room at any given time (for the most part...) they are doing what they are supposed to do. That's creating, working, thinking, brainstorming, and chatting about art (or so I'll tell myself).


The 6th graders are learning the ropes. I have them at 2:00 each day. They have been at school for over 6 hours by that point. They are ready to go home. We're working on staying in our seats, not yelling out, not screaming to friends across the room, and just remembering to respect one another (including the teacher). We've had a few "prayer meetings" and have been reminded of the rules a few times. I've had to make some serious seating arrangements and have even had to move students to new seats multiple times. I am doing so so that we can proceed as planned. For the 6th graders, I have amazing lessons planned. They will be learning one point perspective, making paper mache creatures, doing printmaking, learning about value scales and shading, learning how to use watercolor, and looking at South and Central American art. I am VERY excited about showing these students about art at the middle school.


The walls are blank, but soon we will have artwork up. I have spotted SIX bulletin boards that need artwork on them. We are working on getting a glass display case for the 3D artwork. The media specialist is also amazing at letting us put our artwork in the media center (thanks Lindy!).

During the first week, all students (240) have created a portfolio (folded piece of poster board, stapled sides, name and class on the top) and have started to work on their journals (sketchbooks). We took 12 sheets of white copy paper, a folded piece of 12x18" construction paper, stapled that together, and then created their covers. We studied Teesha Moore and various book artists to get ideas. They learned the art room materials and also were able to be successfully creative with this lesson. The 6th graders have started on their value scales and their color wheel lesson. We are now starting drawing lessons with them. The 7th and 8th were able to be more creative on their sketchbooks. Eighth graders will start sketching skulls and studying the bone structure of the face so that they can begin portraits. The 7th graders have been working on their contour shoe drawings.

This is truly the best school ever!