Memories! What I've been teaching for the past 6 weeks...

I just finished a long term sub position at Fairgrounds Elementary School and was uploading all of my photos to my teacherin' area on Shutterfly (see, I'm organized!!). I thought I'd use Be Funky to create a collage of some of the art projects the students created while I was there. I'll be blogging more about these individual projects soon, but I thought I'd *visually* brag a bit now...I am so proud of the K-5 kiddos at that school!

Enjoy!!

Fairgrounds Elementary School Long-Term Art Substitute Placement, Spring 2016
A sampling of the projects the students created while I was a visiting artist at their school. Grades K-5, 6 weeks. Printmaking, drawing, painting, collage and more! 

Multi-Grade 1-Day Goodbye Project

I just finished 6 1/2 weeks as a long-term substitute art teacher at Fairgrounds Elementary School in Nashua, NH. I had a blast sharing my own art with the children (printmaking, collage, and graphic design and illustration) and creating some winter/spring- and artist-inpired projects that related to the type of art I create. It was a whirlwind, but hopefully I will be able to post more about all of those fun projects soon!

I wanted to share this wonderful goodbye project I did with my kiddos on the last day. I had multiple classes who were done their work and had one class left with me. This project was a nice one since it allowed me to prep once for 5 classes or so and all the students from Kindergarten through grade 5 were able to contribute to it. For the youngins, I read the book "The Dot" by Peter Reynolds afterwards and told them that today (and for the last 6 weeks) they've made their mark all over Fairgrounds (I'm big into collaborative art which is evident in the bulletin board displays I left up all over the school) and in my life as an art teacher.

This project idea came from Jennifer Boral over at The Art of Education (check it out over at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXkqpmGZe88). Loved it and knew I had to try it. While I would have LOVED to do this project with all 500+ students, it just wasn't going to happen due to time constraints, etc. The finished piece is quirky and colorful and adds a bright pop of color as students go to music class and outside to recess.

ENJOY!

Get your shoe fix at KILLER HEELS!

If you are near Manchester, New Hampshire, stop in at the Currier Museum of Art and get your shoe fix at their latest special exhibit: Killer Heels-The Art of the High-Heeled Shoe. I went this past week and it was FABULOUS!! Some of the shoes are pretty tame (not many, though!) and some are confusing (I still can't figure out how one would even put on one particular shoe in the show). Many I want to own and a few just made my jaw drop (spikes? animal hooves? pointe shoes with a 7" heel? YIPES!!).

Image top: Christian Louboutin, “Printz,” Spring/Summer 2013. Courtesy of Christian Louboutin. Photo: Jay Zukerkorn.

The only thing that could have made it better was if I could have tried some of them on--or if they were giving away boxes of shoes to take home! You know, a girl can dream!

Seriously, if you have a chance to see this show, please do. It is fun and so versatile to an art teacher's repertoire! I have a bunch of future art ideas in store for my kiddos.

Enjoy!

One Day GROUP Project: Winter Assemblage (Louise Nevelson)

This was a 1-day getting-to-know-you project I did with the fourth grade students at a school I am temporarily teaching at. I probably should have done an easier "box" as our base--I chose an origami version that we did as a class, step-by-step. Most of the classes were able to follow along, but one class struggled a bit with the creation of the boxes. The original post I saw for this project online, describes an easier "box." I may do that NEXT time.

This piece is about 3 feet wide and 4 feet tall--impressive!
I'm so proud of you, fourth graders!!

We looked at Louise Nevelson's work: "Sky Cathedral," from 1958, and then created our own relief assemblage inspired by winter.

VOCAB: origami, sculpture, relief, assemblage, sculptor, horizontal, vertical, space, form

CROSS-CURRICULAR CONNECTION: Science (seasons, winter), Language Arts (poetry)--if you have the students write a poem about the finished piece. Try this poem, here.

MATERIALS: One 9x12" piece of construction paper (for the box), multiple 1"x12" strips of construction paper (about 6 per child), little squares of white paper for snowflakes (optional), scissors, hole punch, glue sticks; for the teacher's use: hot glue gun and glue sticks, stapler