3d grade Winter Forest Reflections

My 3d grade students are just finishing up some really beautiful winter forest reflection pictures. They only took us two 30 minute classes to complete.  One to draw out the trees with Crayola water base markers (broad) and create the reflections by wetting the bottom half and creating a mono-print and another class to add color to the sky and water/ice, add more detail to the trees with markers if needed, and paint the gently falling snow in the scene.  We worked with a 9x12 piece of white sulphite drawing paper.

I love how the space in the center that was dry and didn't print looks like snow on the ground! 

The kids liked them before we added the finished details, but they really loved them after the extra details!

                                              Each one has it's own personal beauty...

I have seen several different takes on this mono-printing idea, all beautiful.

These are just a few of the many... I have three more classes finishing up this week before our Christmas Break.

My 4th grades are extremely jealous that they didn't do these last year! I told them I will come up with an idea for this technique for them...  :)

For some of my kids this was a lesson in finding beauty in the not so perfect! I have some students that think everything has to be perfect and I am working on getting them to see the beauty in non-perfection! 

I saw this on Instagram and it made me laugh out loud, cuz I've been there! 

I have 1 and 1/2 days left before Christmas Break and I am looking forward to the long break to restore my "batteries" ( and regain my sanity... )

I'm off to continue working on this South Bay Shawl I started last night...I had to frog 2 rows because I screwed up the repeat and didn't find it until a row and a half later when the pattern didn't jive...  I always go into auto-pilot with this pattern and sometimes "V" stitch where I should be creating a single Double Crochet stick ( or visa-versa ). I saw the Lacy Shawl in the Simply Crochet issue 24 and decided I needed to make one. I love the border they put on it! 

Well, off to procrastinate cleaning the house for Christmas...  have a good beginning of your week and a wonderful Christmas! 

Mrs."C"  :)

Just a Quick Hello...

Kindergarten Snow Globes

Just a quick ,"Hello!" this morning! I have been out of touch with the blog these past few weeks as the holidays and life in general has been keeping me super busy! The weather has been "Eh..." around here... cold, windy, snowy, today it's all ice and rain. Several counties in the area have delayed openings for school because everything is encased in ice...

The trees and bushes are glistening with ice... it's now raining like crazy now so it's all becoming a slippery mess...  :( 

I spent all of last weekend baking like a mad woman! I have a couple more types to go this weekend and my cookie gifting can begin! I think I'm going to make some small ornaments to attach to the cookie bags this year...  

I've been loving using Instagram to do almost daily updates on what's going on in the art room so if you are on Instagram pop over to @mrs.c_art to see what's been happening. You can follow the link at the top of on my sidebar on the righthand side of my blog if you are not a follower of IG! 

If you are in the Tri-state area drive careful today and the next few days as this Nor'Easter goes through! 

Mrs."C"  :)

Happy ( Snowy ) Friday!

Yeah! It's Friday!  It snowed here last night in New Jersey... ( and so it begins...) It was a nice, pretty snow... it didn't stick to the roads or driveway ( yea, no shoveling! ) I got about 2 inches at my house. Farther up north about 20 minutes from me got up to 4 inches! Bonus surprise.... I got a phone call this morning that because of a water main break in my school's town there is no water to the school, so... NO SCHOOL!  I have two small errands in town to run this afternoon but other than that it is going to be a me, me, me day! I'm enjoying sitting here with my coffee and looking out the window at the snow on the mountain... so pretty... :)

Below are some pic's of what's been going on in the art room, enjoy! ( explanations to come another time, not in the mood to type right now...)

Signing off so I can go sit and work on this poor shawl that has been put on the back burner for months, maybe I will even get back to my crocodile stitch shawl too... time for some tea... :)

Have a great Friday all! ( I know I am! )         Mrs."C"  :)

Tints and Shades - 5th Grade

Hi everybody! I'm still here! It's been a crazy few weeks and I just... have... not... been able to motivate myself to much of anything... but, I have been inspired to do a lot! ( although I need to get past the inspiration part and actually do it...) I am really loving Instagram! It's so easy to take a picture and quick post it! It's like reading a good magazine or picture book! You can find me there @mrs.c_art

My 5th grade students have been experimenting with color values, tints, shades and tones in some cool simple landscapes...  here are a few of the many...

The kids will fill out their A.R.T. ( art reflection time) Splat sheet when we get back next week from our break. It's a three day week here in NJ for Teacher's Convention. Many, many teachers will be pouring into Atlantic City for convention.  It's a bit of a treck for me from the north so I will be giving my house a well needed Fall cleaning, scouring, scrubbing, organizing, purging ( are there any other words I can use to describe how much needs to be done around here? ).  Oh yeah, and I will be loading a bazillion grades into the computer for the first marking quarter... those are getting done first so I don't have to think about them any more...

I have three different shawls going on right now... this one is almost done, I'm working on the edging now ... the cat is not part of the edging... Mrs."P" just made it her bed this weekend when I put it down... it's really soft and squishy and I can't wait to be able to wrap it around my neck! Although today was definitely not a shawl day! The temps got up into the 60's today! 

Here sits my big box of class folders full of projects to grade... classy storage, I know...  the box has been moved to the rocking chair next to me and I have been taking folders back and forth to school on the days I needed them...

                 ... it all gets done eventually, sometimes later than sooner, but done...

                                               Have a great rest of your week!     :)

Warm Color Tree Silhouettes - 3D Grade

We are in a creative firestorm this year! Third grade just finished up creating their Warm Color Tree Silhouettes and they are stunning in all their warm color glory!

It took us about three 30 minute classes to create them. Some finished in two and some needed the extra third to complete their piece due to absence and working paces...

We started by sketching out a simple tree with black paint. I demonstrated how to use their paint brush to do a quick, simple sketch of their tree and then go back and paint in the lines, spaces neatly. This saved a lot of valuable time not sketching in pencil first and the kids did just fine doing their initial sketch in dry brush.  This took one 30 minute class...

During the second class the kids started by creating a visually textured collage of leaves in the backgrounds of their piece using leaf rubbing plates and only Warm Colors.  Rubbing plates are super popular with my students from Kindergarten all the way up to my Fifth grades! In Kindergarten they think its magical how the patterns/pictures appear on their paper! Even as they get older and understand why the images appear the magic of the rubbing plates still appeal to them! 

The rubbings only took a few minutes to complete so when the kids were ready they started painting over the background with Warm color watercolors.  This was a great opportunity to discuss the concept of contrast in colors. We have been talking about contrast since our first project this school year so when they started painting some of the kids noticed that some of the rubbings were harder to see than others. "Why do think that's happening?", I asked. ( higher order questioning people! I've taken several workshops on higher order thinking/questioning recently...) I had the students offer their thoughts and they all began to conclude that it was because yellow watercolor over yellow crayon had no contrast and didn't show up as well as a red crayon rubbing would with a yellow watercolor over it, yay for contrast! They are making connections!  (Now to just get some of this to happen during one of my observations, lol... )

Most of the kids finished painting during the second class but several in each class needed some more time to catch up with their classmates so we used a third class as an "Art Ketchup" day.  I had several activities prepped for the kids to do if they wanted instead of going to the activity center and let the finished choose.  

 My Thursday Third grades are a little ahead of the Tuesday Thirds so tomorrow I am planning a collaborative circle painting activity for them that coordinates with our Peace week that is happening this week.  The kids know I have something special planned and are eager to find out what it is...

I can't wait to display these tomorrow! They are going to look beautiful together in a group!

I am enjoying my new IPhone 5 ( yeah, I know, I'm slow to keep up with technology... the Verizon dude thought I was nuts when I said I didn't want to wait a couple of days for the 6 ,but hey, that's me, I move to my own beat and it's usually not that of the popular crowd... ) I love how easy it is to take pictures with and they are nice pictures ( to me anyway ) most of blog pics since September have been from my IPhone. I got another new app ( new to me anyway ) last night,  it's called, Color Cap.  I wanted something that I could use to write words on my photos to make some cool visuals for my room.  I made the " Create" one last night from a pic of a watercolor set I had on my phone.  Some of you out there are really tech savvy so I know that it may not be too impressive to you, but for the technologically challenged "moi" ( me ) it's pretty cool! My son and daughter ( 21 and 15 ) are all "check out Mom" using technology and social networking! I'm slow getting there but I'm catching up!  I also put a couple of Flipgrams that I made recently on my Instagram page. You can access it from the link on the top right of my blog page.

 Hope your weather and week are going well! It's blustery, cold and rainy here today!  Came home early today because of a small vertigo spell but it's better now... the room no longer spins out of control when I move my head!  ( like my head isn't always spinning, lol...)

Mrs."C"  :)

This Fall Weekend...

The trees are at or past their peak here... the leaves are quickly falling from their summer homes...

The Burning Bush off my front porch is starting to turn and it's loaded with red berries this year!

We had a visitor Friday morning... I had put a bag with a few ears of corn that we were not going to  eat on the deck the other day ( it was not the best, last of the season, a little tough... ) I was going to move it the next day and forgot... Mr. ( or Mrs. ) Raccoon found it before I moved it and had a corn on the cob feast! It was 5:30 a.m. and I was making coffee when one of my cats starting hissing and growling, thought it was a neighborhood cat at first, that's usually who the hissing is about...  when I turned the deck light on it was this chubby guy! He could have cared less and continued to feast! No, I don't leave my pots and pans out on my deck... that's the pot I do my Eco-Dying in.and the trays I mordant the fabric in... left it out after my last experiment... I need to try some of the Fall leaves and see what will print before they are completely gone for the season...  :)

He really did make a big freakin' mess... my fault for leaving the corn...  :)

I have a slew of projects going at the same time... since I don't have my SGO's to work on ( they are done and handed in! Hallelijah! ) and I am caught up on my lesson plans I am going to spend some time getting my house back to normal ( or as normal as it gets around here... my daughter's best friend said the other day," I love the organized chaos in your house... it makes me feel free! "  I was like, yeah, ok, thanks... and thought to myself, time to organize... )  With all the work I have been doing for school lately I have been putting a lot around the house on the back burner and doing just the bare essentials to keep life moving. When the dust bunnies start to resemble real bunnies it's time to take action :)

At the moment I am not moving too fast as I am enjoying my coffee and there is a cat on my lap...
I might even get those pumkin pies made today...