Weekend Lazy...

                 Weekend lazy...  went apple picking ( should be doing progress report grades...)

Working on two shawls at the same time... slow going with superfine #1 yarn, hand cramping up...( should be working on my SGO data ... that's it under the shawls, at least it made it out of my school bag...) 

Painted, designed another Day of the Dead skull... placed it on my mantle where I can see it... ( should be working on lesson plans...)

Playing with the new photo collage app on my phone... ( should be doing laundry and starting dinner... )

Sitting here watching old horror movie classics, windows open, it's 80+ degrees F today, the cicadas are loud in the trees outside my windows,  the sun is setting fast as I type this... it's getting dark sooner these days... Fall is here...

Tomorrow is Monday and the start of a new busy week... I'll catch up with everything then...

right now, I'm just chillin'... 'cuz, yeah...    :)

A Busy Few Weeks...

It been a busy, creative couple of weeks in the art rooms! We are in the thick of creating! Fall is just around the corner here in New Jersey! The trees on the mountain across from me are starting to turn. The weather has been crisp and cold at night( 40's- 50's F ) so the trees are getting the hint that change is coming! It smells like Fall... I love the smell of Fall... apple picking, pumpkins, corn mazes... sweaters, scarves, cozy blankets...

My 1st grades are starting a piece inspired by Keith Haring.  They are cutting simple shapes to create animals ( reviewing cutting, shape, gluing ) Next they will use lines with movement to finish up the backgrounds.

Cat from simple shapes....

My 5th grades have been working with Form, Value and Space...  I loved the idea of colored pencils in a jar from Mrs.Knight's Smartest Artist's.  I found some great little glass jars at the Dollar Tree and threw some of my fat Prang Triangular colored pencils in them.  The kids did a practice sketch one class with just the pencils in the jar. This past week I went to Michael's Art's and Crafts and gathered up some Fall tidbits to add to the display.  They were a hit and the kids are loving their sketches. My main theme this year is keeping the creativity, even though I still have data to collect. The way I do my data collection is going to be mostly project/portfolio based.  I have been challenging the kids to use their " Creative Concentration" during class and I must say that they have all for the most part risen to that challenge!( there are a couple of classes that are a work in progress, if you know what I mean  :).... I stream Pandora during class ( I made a calm meditation station) and they are reminding to play the music if I forget to turn it up. Sometimes I leave it playing very low in the background when they come in...  ( I love my new trays I got from school Specialty! They have been awesome for putting supplies on the tables. The kids are carrying them, except for the ones with the glass still-life, to the tables if we need a change out of supplies for a grade level and putting them back for me at the end of the day.)

I also love these green flexible carry-alls I got from the Dollar Tree! I got them for the express purpose of holding paper for collage/cut paper  projects like the one we are doing in 1st grade right now and they are working like a dream! They are big enough to contain the paper scraps and small enough to keep on the tables with out taking up too much space! I have also been using them for a variety of other things in the art rooms! The little purple containers in the picture have pencils and erasers in them, another great Dollar Tree find! ( I think I am spending way too much time at the Dollar Tree...) I can put them on the table by themselves or stick them in the table buckets. I have blue ones at my other art room.  I may need to go back and grab more of both if they are still there...

Kindergarten has been creating sunflowers using the color wheel for the center of their flower.  They printed the petals with the tines of some plastic forks. Next week we are adding details! I can't wait for these to be finished! They are going to be awesome on the front hallway bulletin board! 

I picked up a couple of wooden Day of the Dead skulls at Michael's the other night and painted/designed them...

I gave this one to the Spanish teacher in our 3-5 school... she was over the top happy  with it! 

The other one is for me... my little bit of creative time away from school work on Wednesday evening  :)

2nd grade started some leaf prints on Friday, the other sections will create theirs this week. This pic is from my Adaptive Art class with my 3-5 autistic class.  I had some space in my Friday due to some scheduling changes and asked to have an adaptive art class with my K-2 and 3-5 autistic classes.  Friday morning I start with my K-2 and I end the day with my 3-5.  It has been a awesome spending my Fridays with them as a group ( they come to art with their homerooms also so they come two times each week now ).

I don't know who had more fun printing leaves Friday afternoon, the kids or their para's and teacher! It's been a great time for everyone to let loose and have a relaxed, fun, creative time after a LONG week! :)

I've got to go pick up my daughter at a friend's house ( teenager sleepover ). We are going to go see the Maze Runner later this afternoon and maybe I will get back to the two shawls I have been working on for the past month now...  

Enjoy your weekend everybody!

Mrs."C" :)

Back To The Art Room!

Well, summer is officially over, although it did not feel that way in New Jersey this week as we had such oppressive heat and humidity, the likes of which we had not seen all summer! :(  

So hot you are sweating through your clothing! :(

Thursday the kids came back to school... some smiling, some crying, some looking exhausted because they were not used to getting up and moving early in the morning (like me ).

My 1st and 2nd graders were excited when I told them we were painting on the first day! We quickly got our seats , quickly reviewed the art room rules, reviewed our painting procedures and set to creating!  My 1st grades reviewed the color wheel and got to use watercolors, 2nd grade reviewed the color wheel, how to read it to help them mix colors and they used tempera to mix and paint all the colors of the color wheel.

I was happy to see that our "too clean" table placemats were quickly being used  to wipe off brushes! They look so much better with paint on them!

I ordered brandy new paint brushes for this year! It really was time, the others were very well loved but way past their prime!

I ordered, Royal Langnickel Big Kid's Choice.   The kids loved them! They really like the grip on the handle! They were all commenting how cool it was that they grips on the handles!  We went over how to take good care of our new brushes.  I let them know that I still had the old brushes in case there was anyone who was mistreating our new brushes on purpose, I would give them an old brush to use.  All the kids were very careful to use our new brushes correctly! ( I knew they would)

What a happy feeling to see projects drying on the drying racks on the first day! 

There is a major change to my K-2 classes this year... we have always had 40 minutes for art ( I know some of you are saying to yourself " Wow that's all?")  Well, this year I have been reduced to 30 minutes  K-2 ... yeah, 30 minutes...  it was kind of a shock for the kids when I gave them their 5 minute time-check before clean-up! We discussed the time change at the beginning but  they didn't really get it until they saw how short the time felt!  We will work with it, we will get used to it, but we will never like that the time is so short...  my 3d-5th grades have had 30 minute classes for a very long time.  Anyone else out there working with such a short time? I'd love to know...  

This is after two happy classes got to paint.  We will get used to having to clean up faster...  

I also have personally moved into the 21st century and got an IPhone 5 the other day ( chorus of angels singing in the background)  Yes, I have retired my old, well loved and well used texting phone...( it was a really pretty shade of turquoise blue...) but it was time, and my upgrade was in...

I am getting used to it... it actually is cool that I can take photos with it and load them onto Picasa and onto my blog!  I have even started an Instagram for this blog!  I can't get the link to load onto the blog page( it keeps telling me the link Instagram gave me is wrong :(  I'll work on it...  ) but if you want to follow me on Instagram just go over and search for me under users, my user name for Rainbow Skies and Dragonflies is: 

Mrs.C_art      I only have a couple of pictures but I plan on adding them daily!  

Also, for those of you who know and love Hope from Mrs. Knight's Smartest Artist's she now has a Teacher's Pay Teacher's  store!  Go to this link and it will take you to her store!  I have already purchased all the items she has and they are all going to be great inspirations for some pieces I am creating for this school year! 

Another change ( that I am happy about) is that for our SGO's this school year we do not have to give pre and post tests,  we are instead using several mirrored assessments from our projects to obtain the data we need for tiering our students this Fall and following their growth through out the school year. I will have to do final assessments but it will be through our projects! Yeah! We can do a pre and post assessment if we want but they are discouraging us from doing them and would rather we do several different types of assessment that mirror each other and average them together to get our data. 

Well I'm off to write my lesson plans for the week and do some Eco-Printing today! Oh yeah, and piles and piles of laundry!  :)

Have a great week! 

Mrs."C"  :)