Fish Printing

Quite honestly, this is the most fun I've possibly ever had as an art teacher. Which says a lot, because I really love my job! In other schools, we've made gyotaku prints with the Nasco replicas. Which turned out nice and all that. Little did I know how much more fun and exciting it was to use REAL fish.

I bought six tilapia from a local fish market, because the only other whole fish available was three times more expensive. This way, no fighting over which fish they used. With using real fish, you don't want to extend the printing to an additional class day. My pre-K through 2nd grade did this project, all doing a great job. And having a blast!

Kindergarten and up worked with a partner, which allowed us to move pretty quickly. I advise having names already on paper for the prints, which gives you assigned partners and less for the kids (or you) to do during the lesson.

All of the student work looks good, though this is one of my favorites.

A few kids were a bit squeamish about printing the fish themselves, and I heard a lot of "ews." My room was stinky and a big mess. As another classroom teacher pointed out, these kids will always remember printing fish!

Van Gogh Studies

One of our first studies this year included Van Gogh. Third graders studied lines and overlapping to create a sunflower after Van Gogh. I loved how so many of them put their own spin on the project. The color mixing can really be gorgeous with oil pastels.

And a few grouped on exhibit in the hall.

Second grade also studied Van Gogh. We discussed how artists can be inspired by ordinary objects to create art. We drew the (very ordinary) chairs in our classroom. The students made them beautiful!

Art Advocacy Video

Line Boogie-Woogie

I've used Mondrian as a beginning of the year lesson for Kindergarten using paint in years past (idea from Cynthia Colbert, University of South Carolina.) It was nice to just kick off my students' first art experience with something exciting like painting. My situation is a bit different this year in that Kindergarten was HUGE at the beginning of the year. I decided I didn't want that many little kids painting just yet. (A new K teacher was hired and the class size is much more manageable.) Instead (ala Conway Elementary art teacher, Ms. Nicholson) we used precut lines and shapes from construction paper. Though I loved the lesson with paint as well, my kids really took off with these and I loved them.

These were my favorites. We talked about showing roads and building from a bird's eye view. This boy decided to add tunnels, too. Awesome! 

A few overpasses were added by this student in a different class. I love when kids just run with it!

A new blog

(This abstracted tea pot lesson came from an Arts and Activities years ago. I'd give more credit, but don't still have the magazine.)

That's all I really need is a new blog! I'm already not keeping up with my other blogs, but, apparently, I'm enough of an (blog) addict that I'm doing it anyway. I love reading other art ed blogs for ideas, so I figured that I would contribute a few of my own. Many of my lessons come from other sources, I will give credit as much as I can remember! For this first post, a sample of student work and a pre-K painting.