Catching up and 5th grade sculptures...

I've been offline for a bit because my life's been full and busy! I just began a long-term art substitute position at Amherst Middle School in Amherst, NH! The semester was changing over right when I was being trained so it has taken me a couple of days to focus and get used to it all. I'm teaching 5th-8th grade and I'm really excited about this semester and working with my students.

The intro class for 5th graders is a fun one and a long-standing tradition at AMS: plaster casts of the students' hands. The art teacher at AMS, Rachel Rouillard, walked me through the process. It's a bit messy, a bunch of fun, and it gets the 5th graders sitting really still for 10 minutes!

Students began by painting their hands with watercolors, if they wished. Once the plaster was mixed up, I scooped a yogurt cup size amount of gooey plaster into their cupped hands. Then, they waited about 10 minutes. While they waited I explained classroom procedures, etc. Once they unmolded their "sculptures" they could use the watercolors to add more color. On day two, we finished painting and then used the sculptures in a contour line drawing lesson.

They are pretty cool looking, and every one is unique--just like my students!

Guest Post! Lights, Camera, Action!

Today I had the wonderful opportunity to lead a session at the Educational Theater Collaborative's (ETC) Integrated Arts Conference at Plymouth, NH with my colleague and friend, Tiffany Dube. One of the "challenges" we had for the participants was exploring blog writing and I offered a posting on my blog to get them started. 

This post by Jean Butler and Ashley Shorb describes the Integrated Arts Conference in general. These posts were generated by the participants at the conference and reflect their thoughts and beliefs. I'm just happy to post! Enjoy!

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New Hampshire Integrating the Arts Conference 2015

Today 50 Arts educators and Artists converged at Plymouth State University to enrich ourselves and share creative and innovative ideas about integrating the arts into the classroom. We are surrounded by glowing visual arts projects and new and very high energy. The NHDOE arts consultant, Marcia McCaffrey, tallied how many students we impact in a year and found the number to over 19,090 students in New Hampshire. Each attendee participated in two workshops.  Workshops were themed around the musical “The Sound of Music” which is being performed at the Silver Center for the Arts in Plymouth, NH.

Guest Post! Connecting Movement with Math Concepts

Today I had the wonderful opportunity to lead a session at the Educational Theater Collaborative's (ETC) Integrated Arts Conference at Plymouth, NH with my colleague and friend, Tiffany Dube. One of the "challenges" we had for the participants was exploring blog writing and I offered a posting on my blog to get them started. 

This post by Jaylene Bengtson and Bob McNutt describes a session they attended prior to mine called "Sixteen Going On Seventeen: Math Meets Movement" led by Rene Martinez. These posts were generated by the participants at the conference and reflect their thoughts and beliefs. I'm just happy to post! Enjoy!

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The writers chose this image by Keith Haring
because of the movement it represents.

In our first breakout session we learned how movement can be utilized to support math concepts in a variety of levels across grade levels. We experienced how to make both physical and mental connections that reinforced the learning of difficult mathematical expressions. Coming from both Art Education and Physical Education we can incorporate our own ideas teaching different units with movement.  It can also be used in a variety of other teaching professions.  Great session lead by Rene Martinez and we highly recommend using movement in the classroom.

Guest Post! Visual Arts: A Major, Not an Extra

Today I had the wonderful opportunity to lead a session at the Educational Theater Collaborative's (ETC) Integrated Arts Conference at Plymouth, NH with my colleague and friend, Tiffany Dube. One of the "challenges" we had for the participants was exploring blog writing and I offered a posting on my blog to get them started. This post by Frank Sharlow talks about the charter school he is a part of--something that he feels really excited about. These posts were generated by the participants at the conference and reflect their thoughts and beliefs. I'm just happy to post! Enjoy!

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I have had the tremendous opportunity to be part of a chartered high school based on the arts in Derry, New Hampshire called Granite State Arts Academy. I was hired in August of 2014 as the visual arts department coordinator for the school.  We are currently in our first year of classes and building the visual arts department has been both rewarding and challenging.

Each student who attends our school is required to major in one of the arts provided at the school: visual arts, dance, music, or theatre.  It has been wonderful to work in an environment where being the art teacher is considered being a major and not an extra.

We are currently busy planning and building our curricula for year two at GSAA and are eager and excited to provide in-depth arts education to students in New Hampshire.