Mona Lisa and Other Management Techniques

I recently read about the Mona Lisa call/response technique and being Mona Lisa ready. How perfect! My students were already hearing me say "Mona Lisa quiet" because of the noise level display but these directions were so clear, specific, and fun!

     Looks like a new poster is in order!

I didn't send this poster to the printer. Instead, I used our on-site A3 color printers. (For those of you unfamiliar with A3, it's twice the size of A4. A4 is very similar to 8 1/2 by 11.)

While I was designing, printing, and laminating, I decided to illustrate my "first grade rules."

Last year, first grade was rather large with an especially high concentration of rowdy boys. While I usually prefer rules that are broad guidelines and general principles, I found I needed some explicit instructions.

     Stay in your seat.
     Raise your hand.
     Only talk to people at your table.

I wrote these rules on the board and reviewed them at the beginning of class each week. When students violated a rule, I directed their attention back to the board before going any further. While my normal teaching style is more relaxed, this system worked to restore some order to the chaotic class.

These students are now second graders. The class has been split and a few additions were made, but I've found some of them still need the structure of those three simple rules.

I rewrote the rules on my white board during the first week of school but now I have these spiffy signs!

Each rule is a separate full-color A3 print, laminated and displayed via magnet tape on the whiteboard. I like that the rules are individual print-outs so I can separate them to focus on a specific rule or move them to another part of the board. I can even take them down entirely for an upper level class that is permitted to get out of their seats to get supplies.

In the same vein as the Art Room Noise Levels, I found examples from art history to illustrate the instructions. I searched through my AP Art History images to find appropriate works. I like that the three images I settled on are ancient, Renaissance, and non-western. I might change the image for only talking to kids at your table. I'm not thrilled with using a 3D example. In addition, I wouldn't mind something more modern or a non-western that is less influenced by colonization. If you have suggestions, comment below! For now, I'm just excited to have moved beyond Expo markers on the whiteboard.

Back from the printer

I have an addiction. Or three, maybe four.

     1 kuai colored paper
     double-sided tape
     custom printing (with unique fonts)

When I first got into my classroom in 2008, I started to make posters with class expectations, character traits of the month, flavorful folds, and my name. By the time second semester rolled around, I'd realized my TA had much nicer handwriting. She became my go-to sign maker, creating character trait signs for successive years, job charts, bookshelf labels, and a bilingual color wheel.

Last year, my TA switched departments. With her handwriting out of the picture, I decided to try a new avenue for classroom displays--custom printing. It seemed only natural to enlist the local printer for art classroom needs; my graphic design projects had already made it on t-shirts, banners, posters, and mugs for the school.

Throughout the process, I loved the freedom and possibilities of creating my new class expectations digitally, and the finished product looks amazing in my classroom!


This year, I took on a few new printing projects. I decided the color wheel could use an upgrade. The laminated pieces had a few minor errors and were starting to look a little worse for wear. These posters were printed as rectangles, then I cut the edges to look like paint blobs.

I was also inspired by posters on pinterest. I loved content, but like timelines, I just wasn't quite satisfied with the designs as is. I'm quite picky. I needed them to fit in specific spots around my whiteboard and I preferred a different color scheme. Combine some new fonts (Equestria and GeoSansLight), my rainbow class colors, and a taupe-y/grey background. Ta da! New posters for my art room.

Look really carefully, to the left of the bulletin board. You can see the very narrow space that necessitated custom posters. While I was at it, I printed an extra noise level chart for the secondary art teacher and about 14 extra THINK posters for teachers at school.

I absolutely love the way the posters turned out! Thanks to pinterest for linking me up with the originals and to Theresa Gillespie and Shannon P Long for sharing their ideas.

In Situ

The poster is here!

It arrived on my second day of art classes (fifth day of school) and is perfect for the space. The first few art classes learned about the expectations by looking at a digital copy on my TV. It was great to see their excited faces when the walked into art this week and were greeted by the large poster.

As you can see, I decided to move the character traits for each month to the engaged column/support piece to the right of the poster.

In the past, this space was empty or contained random funny pictures of myself and the music teacher. Now the character traits have a new home and the column has a purpose, which freed up the space above my board for...

















an art history timeline! I know you can buy pre-made timelines, but (personal opinion) they're ugly. Please send me a link to one that is visually appealing and able to be understood by students sitting in the back of the room. (I don't actually have any pre-made poster in my room. I custom-make everything either by hand or have it printed locally from my graphic design. I'm just too picky!) So I've never had a timeline before, nor have I ever wanted one. (Two years ago, when I taught AP Art History for the first time, I didn't use my classroom, otherwise I might have thought about having a timeline then...)

Right now, the timeline is fairly empty. I placed a few familiar images from the book Art is... along the timeline, since all my students read the book on the first day of class. I also added four images from Mesopotamia that we studied in detail in AP Art History. On Monday, we begin Egypt, so we will start to incorporate those along the timeline. As various elementary classes look to art of the past, I will also add those images to our chronology.

I messed with the scale, labeling every 45 cm but changing the time increments (jumping large amounts of time for ancient art and making more divisions for recent time periods).

You can see the artmaking process posters to the right of my board, next to the TV. If you look carefully, you'll notice a new purple poster to the left of the board. I was inspired by different art blogs and pinterest pins to create an "I'm done. Now what?" display. My sketchbook this year has various extra-time activities. With this new display, I can change out the options each class, giving the choice of up to three different activities (free draw, free read, artist statement, my artist list, drawing squares, coloring pages, etc.).

Right now, I'm addicted to fonts, especially new ones from dafont.com and Kimberly Geswein. She's a friend of a friend and worked at one of our sister schools. I'd take up her offer to make my handwriting into a font if I actually liked my handwriting...but I don't. One of the reasons I print everything with fun fonts.

Another reason I love creating my art displays digitally---being able to mix and match fonts! Some favorites are Grobold, Aubrey, Bauhaus 93, Broadway BT, Designer Notes, Paper Cutout, Complete in Him, and Loved by the King. Plus, I've loved Avant Garde and Century Gothic for a few years now.

But the mixing of fonts, my recent obsession.

It's a Dry Erase Miracle!

I stumbled across a new art teacher supply this summer.

Back in the spring, my mom e-mailed me about a great sale on Crayola products. Not knowing what would be in stock at the local arts and crafts store, I sent her a dream list compiled from Crayola's website. I had never heard of Dry Erase Crayons but thought they would be neat to try.

I think I am in love.

I demonstrate many art skills on the whiteboard directly, but cannot model value changes due to pressure and layers. While I absolutely hate using chalkboards, I hear that's one thing they were good for...


So art teacher, meet Crayola Dry Erase Crayon. It comes in standard colors and brights (works on whiteboards or black dry erase boards). And just to show the value changes possible, I made a quick shaded sphere for you. I also demonstrated the standard green next to the bright green, then two oranges and two purples.

Thus far, a little elbow grease and a soft cloth has been all that's needed to get erase the crayon.

Mr. E recently blogged about another use of the crayons---a lesson with aluminum foil. 

But for now, I am content to be able to demonstrate creating value with pressure and/or layering on my whiteboard!

And as for you, run, don't walk, to your nearest arts and crafts store to pick up a teacher box of these crayons. If you have the time, energy, and ideas, consider picking up more for your class, but at least buy yourself a set for demonstrations...

Q-tips, Soap Dish, and a Vegetable Strainer

Carrefour (french Wal-mart) is my favorite school shopping location. Sure, they don't have any actual art supplies. The department TA gets most of those from the art store in another part of town.*

But wandering the aisles of Carrefour (as long as it's not Sunday afternoon) is just so much fun!

Carrefour is my main source of plastic containers.

It began in my first year when I spotted these strainers. The colors caught my attention, as my tables are labeled red, yellow and blue. I picked up a few, and then continued to buy more over the years. Round, small rectangles, large rectangles (perfect for A4 paper), two-layer trays. As my teaching progressed, I found myself sorting some supplies into warm, cool, and neutral. The red containers became perfect for the warm paper scraps, blue for the cool, and yellow was the closest to neutral.






Over time, I've collected Great Lakes juice bottles, Skippy peanut butter jars, and illy coffee cans to hold other supplies. Free containers for the art department, and further justification of my daily orange juice ritual.  You can see that some of the containers are extra colorful.  The Great Lakes rectangular juice bottles are my favorite water containers.  They hold enough water for two students to use without changing water during class.  The shape is very stable and never tips.  The ridges in the corners also provide a great texture to help loosen paint from the brushes.

While I love these containers, I recently wandered Carrefour looking for something to hold crayons. These containers are too tall, making them impractical for crayons and little hands.


I first spotted soap dishes and noticed the similarity between the lid and a crayon box. (I also had a regular size crayon and large size crayon in my purse to confirm sizes.)

At $.50 each, I bought 10 for crayons. I also picked up some new spongebobs. After three years, they were looking a little worse for wear and I was a few short in the larger classes.




When I was unpacking the items in the classroom, I realized that the soap dish lids were the perfect size for spongebob! In the meantime, I'd also noticed that my Chinese Q-tips came in the cutest little transparent plastic container that seemed like they were meant for crayons. So bring on another trip to Carrefour and 20 more soap dishes. And, well, two different brands of Q-tips had two different size plastic containers---same height, different diameters---so I had to get 12 of each. And now I have great little cups of crayons and thousands of Q-tips in two large plastic bags.





*The art store is half the size of the average convenience store in the states, or smaller, and packed floor to ceiling with high school, college, and professional level materials. Acrylic, oil, tube watercolors---but no tempera. Absolutely no Crayola products, but they do stock Prismacolor Markers. Colored pencils, oil pastels, but no crayons. My markers and crayons are imported. And if you had any thoughts about crafty stuff, like pipe cleaners, pop poms, and tacky glue---nope. Just the basics. We have to run around town to many other stores to find all the random supplies I want.

Another new display

It's off to the printer!

The poster depicts class expectations based on the kid-friendly version of our Expected Schoolwide Learning Results (ESLRs). Unfortunately, I won't have my new "rules" ready for the first day of art class, at least for the classes that come on Monday, but I'm excited to see the final result. It will be about 1 meter wide and just a little taller than that. This is the first thing I will have gotten printed for my classroom! Banners, teeshirts, mugs---my designs end up all around my school and on my students, but this is new territory. At less than $10, I might be getting a lot more custom posters for my room.


By the way, purple is underrepresented in my rainbow room, thus the tone-on-tone purple poster.





The background image (ESLR MAN!) is compliment of our curriculum and professional development coordinator. In preparation for our WASC accreditation visit last spring, she analyzed how we utilize (or don't utilize) the ESLRs as a part of daily school life and learning. The ESLR icon was born as a way to visually identify the ESLRs at play in school. We joke about ESLR stamps, temporary tattoos---you name it, we've suggested it.

I took the icon and added stylized labels of our five ESLR categories, and then she and I attacked our campus with the icon last semester. We stuck ESLR MAN! next to bulletin boards, plaques, student work---anything that demonstrated achievement in one of the five categories. The goal was to help student and teachers see how they were already working towards our ESLRs. And now ESLR MAN! has found his way into the background of my classroom EXPECTATIONS...




In case you were worried, I haven't gotten rid of my "Awesome Artists" poster. I moved it to the back wall of my room, above the construction paper. I still plan on referring to it and discussing ways students can be "Awesome," but for this year, the focus is personal; In art class, I will try my best to learn and not give up.

New Year, New Displays

My room has evolved just like my teaching. The first year was all over the place, making lots of mid-year changes and figuring it out as I went along. The second year was a huge change, being able to plan well from the beginning and knowing much more what I wanted. The third year was almost a complete repeat of year two, with only subtle tweaks (character traits in rainbow colors, redoing teacher pockets for new teachers, etc.).


One new addition for year three was the "artmaking process." When reading an info sheet about the Davis Elementary Textbook Explorations in Art, I was curious by the "five-step studio process, aligned with the five-step writing process." I asked around with the elementary teachers and it turns out, they all teach slightly different versions of the writing process.

     Is making a 2nd draft a step?
     Are revising and editing different steps?
     How about publishing?

After thinking about it for some time, I decided to simplify and create a four-step process. I didn't get the posters up until December, but they found a perfect home just above my white board (funny thing...maybe I custom fit them to the space...).


I thought long and hard about the subject matter of my example art piece. While I first thought an apple would suffice, I decided to chose something from the city culture here in China. The "May Wind" is a large sculpture in a park along the waterfront near the "city hall." It is easily recognized by the students and taps into local pride and identity.



This year, I'm itching for some new displays. My line families (straight, angled, and curvy), created on newsprint, served me well for three years, but could hold up no longer. I'm also considering revamping the art "rules" (Awesome Artists) to align to our Expected Schoolwide Learning Results (ESLRs). Finally, I would like to emphasizes vocabulary and feature artists somewhere in the room. And school starts on Wednesday. BUT elementary specials start the following Monday, so I have until the 16th to finalize my "first day" displays, with room to grow and change as the year progresses. In the meantime, I'm scouring the art blogs for inspiration.

Melt In Your Mouth Memories

My name is long.
And difficult to pronounce.

                 Just ask any of the telemarketers that called right in the middle of dinner when I was growing up.


I know some other elementary teachers with long names. One such friend could symbolize her syllables with a hand waving "Bye," a cow, and skis. Bykowski. Mel-a-oh blast it! It doesn't work for my syllables.

Another friend's name, Budensiek, rhymes with Hide-n-Seek. (If you know something that rhymes with Melachrinos, let me know.)

So I've settled for Miss M. It's short and sweet.

My first year, in the famous 4th grade figure drawings of your teacher class period, I noticed that a new student labeled her drawing of me as "Miss M&M." Precious! Apparently I'd never properly introduced myself to her.

At the end of that year, an ESL student wrote me a sweet note that said "When I think of you, I think about M&M."

And so, in my second year of teaching, I added a second name sign, this one utilizing brown M&M's for the M's in Miss M.

This year, the M&M insanity began with annotating steps in a process that needed teacher approval with hand-drawn M&M's. I decided it would be much cooler if I made custom magnets to use instead, so I printed off some pictures of circles and the animated characters. Red and Yellow. The house colors of me and my buddy, the elementary music teacher! I labeled one printout and posted it above her desk as some office-lovin'. Another printout was posted in my classroom and always makes the students laugh.

Just this week, I found the image on the right in an old magazine, donated to the art department. I had to tear it out and share! The kids LOVE it and asked if they can enter to win the million dollars. Unfortunately, the magazine is at least 5 years old. I actually have a red teeshirt with an M on it, just like Yellow's Trick-or-Treat outfit! My mom bought it for me. I really wish I had more opportunities to wear it to school.

Continuing the candy-theme, I give a bag of M&M to each student featured in the Student Masterpieces section of our school's online newsletter. I staple a note of congrats and the url for the site on each package.

Then earlier this semester, I was at my whit's end about noise in the hallway. Some classes come so quietly, they can sneak up and surprise me. Others announce their presence long before they reach my door. While I think the teachers and TAs are the biggest factor in this behavior, I wanted to find a way to motivate the students to come quietly (and not disturb other music and art classes in-progress).

I decided to make an M&M chart. Classes could earn up to two M&Ms per class period---one for arriving quietly and one for leaving quietly. When a class reached 10 M&M's, they would get an M&M treat for the class.

As you can see, it has not been completely effective. Just a week after I started the chart, we had a fire in the music storage room which displaced my class for quite a few days. And despite the candy motivation, 5th grade can't seem to come quietly. Kindergarten has recently earned a few more M&M's, but I have given up with PreKindergarten; they are just too young.

Only a few weeks after I started this chart, elementary switched to a (almost) no-candy reward system. The principal gave me permission to follow through with this chart and the promised candy treat, but strongly suggested I find a non-candy alternative. How about M&M stickers, or even better, a stamp! Kids would love an M&M sticker or a stamp on the hand for a job well done.

                Lastly, I have decided, until we are no longer in the 21st century,

                I will sign and date my elementary art samples as such.

(un)Natural Disasters

Last week started out with a day dedicated to hearts, but rapidly took a turn in a different direction.

I wrote the following entry last Wednesday to correspond with a Valentine's Day-inspired digital postcard created for my masters class.

If I were sitting down to make a postcard now, I would create a piece about the elements, not of art, but the ones more familiar to me as the kids from Captain Planet. Earth. Fire. Wind. Water. Heart.

Our arts building experiences these in unique ways.
     A flood in my classroom (water).
     A cloud formation* in the ceramics room (wind).
          and today
     A fire in the music storage room (fire).

Yes, the music teacher and I walked into our building today to find that the heater in the storage room had an explosion/electrical fire overnight. The guards found it this morning and had already called the operations department, but the building was filled with smoke and a layer of soot covered my classroom.

What a day it was! But since I'd almost finished my postcard yesterday, I decided to work it to completion today rather than explore the Planeteers that plague our building. You're stuck with a postcard about the fifth power in the cartoon of my childhood---heart.

And here's to hoping earth doesn't make an appearance next year...


*How to explain the freak weather phenomena that occurred in the ceramics room...
Essentially, it was my fault (unlike the flood or the fire). I left the air conditioner running in the classroom. Not central air and not a window air conditioner, this stand up machine functions as both cooling device, dehumidifier, and heater. Unbeknownst to me, it was on the dehumidify setting. And also unbeknownst to me, that has no temperature limit. So the machine kept working all weekend, cooling that room down to some unreasonable temperature. And the rest of the building was warm and humid. Cold dry sealed classroom. Warm humid hallway. Meet in the small space for air to pass through around the door. Condensation craziness! I created a cloud. Inside. And like all clouds, it had to rain eventually. And soak the classroom, grow mold in the ceiling tiles, and create a stream in the hallway. A rather large object lesson in the water cycle, all in one weekend...


And so now, almost a week later, the clean-up continues. I am a refugee, displaced from my classroom and teaching in a spare room in the elementary building. Boy, do I miss my sinks! But the major work in the hallway is done now and the music department is finished using my classroom as temporary storage. I have the afternoon free tomorrow and hope to spend it getting my room usable for Wednesday's classes. I might look like a chimney sweep by the end of the day, but the layer of soot that currently covers every shelf will be gone!

The Way Things Work

Some things are just a little different on this side of the world.

Understatement.

Many things are very different on this side of the world.  One of the most interesting adjustments is the lack of standards.  I'm not talking about standards of quality here, though that is another discussion.  I'm talking about the assembly line and interchangeable parts and all those other 2nd Industrial Revolution developments of 100+ years ago.

Everything is done custom.  Sounds expensive, huh?  In fact, it's quite cheap here.  Underpaid laborers are much cheaper than automating factories with machines.  Again, another story.

We've been looking to purchase a new drying rack.  What was wrong with the old drying rack?  Almost nothing.  It worked just fine.  It was a little small.  Though it could hold 150 papers or something, it was best with A4 paper or a little larger (perhaps 12x16).  My 38cm x 52cm paper hung over the sides by about 15cm.  In the picture, most of the papers are half-size.  Half-size (26cm x 38cm fits quite nicely).

Still, the main problem was one drying rack---two art classes.  Separated by a flight of stairs.  Really, it was my drying rack.  The secondary students and teacher never used it.

So we budgeted to buy another drying rack.  From the states.

Seems silly for a wire rack that ships partially or fully ASSEMBLED.  At $150-$300 per rack, plus shipping across the Pacific Ocean...yeah, that's a beast.

Enter Shine Hou.  She makes our school run.  As "Assistant to the Facilities Manager," I firmly believe she is the reason our buildings don't fall down and our electricity works each day!  Today was her last day before her maternity leave.  I will miss her dearly.

Shine decided such a simple metal structure should be easy to get welded in China.  Shine did her undergraduate studies in Industrial Design, and has great English!  She put her workers on the task and next thing I knew, the maintenance men were asking for drawings of the structure.

At this point in time, my colleague decided she would just as well take my drying rack and let me custom design what I wanted for the classroom.  What a joy!

I looked at a number of designs online.  I decided I needed it to function in two main ways---to hold paper that is approximately A4 or slightly larger and to hold my 38cm x 52cm paper (a staple in my room for painting projects).  While the rolling paper rack certainly has its advantages, and I'd just trained all the students this year to carefully put their own paintings on the rack, I decided to make use of my countertop space.


It seems like countertop space should be sacred.  It is certainly a finite resource.  Yet one of my biggest skills is the ability to collect clutter on any flat surface.  Just check my office desk, my bedroom floor, or my classroom countertops for proof.  If I committed countertop space to the drying racks, it would at least be organized!  Bingo.  That's my theme for the year.

So I set down to design the perfect drying racks.  The drying racks would have an identical footprint, 40cm x 60cm, and be 50-some cm tall.  One drying rack would be single sided and open to the front, to hold the infamous 38cm x 52cm paper.  The other drying rack would be double sided, like the rolling version, to hold twice as many small pieces. 

The price was set at RMB 2400.  About $350.  It was higher than I anticipated, higher than I wanted, but it was two racks, and no shipping cost.  Plus it was less than we budgeted for buying and shipping one from the states.  And it would fit my paper and my countertop perfectly.

Almost.

If only the welder had used the correct dimensions.

After three or more weeks of waiting, a fabulous 40cm x 40 cm x 50-something cm drying rack arrived in my classroom.  In Shine's wisdom, she had suggested we only agree to one rack and check the quality.  The construction was fine, the paint job was fine (a key issue since we don't want the metal to rust), but the dimensions were not fine.

My paper didn't fit. 

I don't know how the welder got confused.  The Chinese read 0123456789.  And the diagram was clearly not a square design.

Despite the awkward, almost unusable size (they also added too many support pieces which makes it difficult to slide in a paper), I still love looking at my countertop and seeing the brand-new, custom-made drying rack.  We negotiated a reduced-rate for the erronious rack.  We've also taken the risk of ordering the two correct racks.  I think we've gone over the diagrams enough times to make it clear for this second try.  If not, I can always give the three awkward racks to the new art teacher next year and hold onto my rolling rack...



Did you notice the lamp structures in front of the drying rack?  How could you miss them!  Fourth grade is designing paper lamp shades again to coincide with their science unit on electricity.  We glued the first paper shades on today!

Taste the Rainbow

I've been without a camera for most of this school year. Sadness. My digital camera started acting up in the fall. I keep meaning to get it fixed. Though it might be cheaper in the states, or at least more cost-effective in the long run, to buy a new camera, labor is incredibly cheap here. Our tech guy suggested I see about getting it fixed. Easier said than done. I know a few camera stores in the states. I know no camera stores in China. And if I were to find the location of one (I'm certain there are dozens in my city), well then I'd still need to communicate with the employee. Alas, I am determined to attempt this feat before I go back to the states for the summer.

That all to say, I had a camera in my hands on Friday and couldn't stop taking pictures of my room. It started by trying to document the color in my life. I have rainbows throughout my classroom. I went to write about this today, but as I discovered, I haven't written about the renovations to my classroom. Most were cosmetic. Other differences from last year are about my desire to increase my systematic organization. With a year under my belt, I decided it was a good time to address how I used the space last year and how I could better use it this year. Plus, I found lots of great ideas online and a new year was the best time to introduce new systems to the kids.

So here's a taste of the rainbows in my classroom.

Can you see it?  It's subtle.  This is both rainbow AND organization.  Last year, my TA randomly selected colors for the covers of the students' sketchbook.  Some were pastel shades.  Some were bright shades.  5th grade was pastel pink.  What 5th grade boy wants a pastel pink sketchbook?

This year, I was very specific about the colors. 

For 1st through 5th grade, I teach two sections.  Five colors there, one per grade.  If I lump the 1 class of PreK and the 1 class of K together, that gives me a "6th" grade---or six colors.  RAINBOW.  Let's stick with the bright colors please...


I also nabbed a great shelving unit from my colleague's classroom.  She had some new cabinetry made to replace her largely inadequate storage.  In the process, she got rid of these two pieces.  Ten shelves, not very high each, are much better for storing student projects than the 8 shelves of last year.  1 class per shelf, 1st through 5th grade.  PreK and K go in another part of the classroom.  The left shelf holds the sketchbooks and some projects in process.  The right shelf (twice as long) holds other projects for that class.




The colors continue into these pockets, lining the bottom of my white board.  I stole this system from another art teacher who blogs about her classroom.  At the beginning of the year, the students made name cards.  All the laminated cards go in the left "Need a Job" pocket.  After students have a job, their card goes in the "Had a Job" pocket.  Once all the cards are in the "Had a Job" pocket, they get moved back to the "Need a Job" pocket.  What are the jobs, you ask?

Try not to laugh too hard.  I don't have chairs in my classroom.  While the other teacher had a "Chair Inspector," I needed to change the term to more accurately reflect my classroom, thus the "Stool Inspector." 

The name cards get displayed just to the right of the job using magnets.  This little display is on the very left of my whiteboard.











Below are some signs from last year.  My TA made the color wheel signs, along with most of the signs in my classroom.  I prefer her handwriting any day...the color wheel signs are in English, Chinese Characters, and Pinyin (alphabetical spelling of Mandarin).  Ignoring my ability to collect things on the top of my shelves (most of those items are 4th grade animal sculptures), notice the cork board walls!  And if you look closely, you'll notice the new hooks in the hallway.  Just a few of the changes since August 2008...
































For you enjoyment, a few more rainbow spottings...

See more pictures of the room, last year and this year, in this album.

Why does Miss M need a fireplace?

Ok, I'll give away the correct answer in the beginning. It's for the lower elementary (PreK-2nd) Christmas program. The setting is a living room...kids in pajamas, listening to a bedtime story. Clearly, a fireplace would help set the stage.

The fireplace was constructed last week (through our facilities department), but with the upper elementary (3rd-5th) Christmas program last Friday, I had NO TIME to paint the wooden structure.

Suddenly, it was this week, and we needed the fireplace ready for 10:30 am, Wednesday.

I managed to get a beige basecoat completed on Monday. That left the stones for Tuesday.

Tuesday is also my heavy load for teaching. I threw the dress code out the window and wore painting clothes all day long. Between classes, and even during classes, I painted! The typical routine: explain to the students why I have the fireplace and why I need to work on it, start them on their project, and then get back to painting! Some second graders finished their project early and wanted to help. The inside black and top brown are complements of that class!

My last class of the day was 1st grade. I wasn't finished with the stone, but I knew I could not paint during that class. Those kids demand my whole attention!

Retelling the story later, I described the fireplace as the elephant in the room. That's completely the wrong phrase. Sure, it's the big thing in the middle of the room, but EVERYONE is talking about it!

I got first grade seated and quiet as quickly as possible. It was time to start the spiel. Raise your hand if you can tell me what that it? Since most of my kids are non-native English speakers, they don't know the English word "fireplace." Instead, I get the word fire, accompanied by hand motions and sound effects! Yes, in English, we call that a fireplace.

and WHY does Miss M need a fireplace?

The most popular answer was "to be warm." It may be cold in our school, but this fake wooden fireplace is not a solution to that problem!

Answer number two, from Justin, the creator of the pilgrim snowmen below, "so Santa can come and bring you presents!"

As every first grader knows, I live in my classroom. And how is Santa going to find me all the way around the world in China? Clearly, I need a fireplace. It made perfect sense to him! (Never mind the fundamental structural differences between this faux fireplace and the real-deal, namely a chimney!)

















Sitting on the ground, doing some finishing touch-ups!

One Full Week!

This week was the first FULL WEEK with students.

Five student days.

I'd like to say it was nothing, didn't wear me out or anything.

In all honesty, I was so excited for Friday to finally come! And then, just in time for the weekend, some sort of bug knocked me out COMPLETELY on Saturday. All day Saturday...I'll spare you the details.

Thankfully, I started feeling better this morning, so I had all day to sleep, start to eat, and regain my strength for ANOTHER FIVE DAY WEEK! But I did miss having a weekend, where I could do things for myself...

Check out the picture below! I came in last Monday to find a BRAND NEW CEILING AND LIGHTING in my art room. I was told that they would be putting in new lights, but I didn't realize the lights and drop ceiling would come at the same time. I don't have much of an opinion about the ceiling. It looks nice, and that extra 2 or 3 feet would never have been used. This is supposed to help with heating and cooling costs, and now I have better lighting!



















Probably the biggest news for this week is that I'm teaching the Pre-K class! Once a week, for 30 minutes. It's a small little class of 7 students. One girl cried hysterically about coming to art class. Thankfully, one of the classroom teachers stayed and sat with her. About 5 or 10 minutes into class, she finally stopped crying.

It's a fun class, especially since I have four of my colleagues' children as students. Two of the boys' dads work in the secondary building. One little girl's dad is a music teacher and the head of fine arts. And another little boy, his dad is my principal, the principal of the elementary school.

Pre-K was learning about colors in their class. We practiced our cutting skills by playing "HIDE AND SEEK" and finding the colors that were hiding in magazines.

The yellow table cut out yellow items.
The red table cut out red items.
The blue table cut out blue items.

Then a teacher helped each table glue their bits onto construction paper. The classroom teacher that stayed helped the yellow table, my TA helped the red table, and I helped the blue table.

My principal's son was sitting at the blue table. At one point in time, I thought he said "I like you." Then I realized, he was probably saying "I like blue" since he was sitting at the blue table and cutting out blue items. A few minutes later, I was helping him cut out some more items. This time, it was clear as day. "I like you." Yes, this little four year old boy likes me.

He also likes my scissors. They spring open to help young children with their fine motor skills...

He saw me two days later, on Friday, pointed at me and told the person he was with "I like her."



















Here are the finished Olympic bulletin boards---designed and created by the 5th grade classes.

I'm so impressed.

Nearly everything is their own creation. I stapled the items on the board, with their direction. I also created the flag of South Africa on the first bulletin board. (It's fairly complicated, and the students were struggling, but since our secondary principal is from South Africa, I thought I'd help them out!)

I love the way the first bulletin board combined the Olympic rings and the word "Olympics." Genius.

And check out the finished torches on the second bulletin board...those torches are the result of rulers, protractors, "paper and pencil" math calculations, mental math, and research at home! (One boy from the group printed out color images of the torches at home and brought them in for the second class so they could get all the details perfect.)





































Lastly, some finished hand designs from the 2nd graders and the 2nd/3rd grade ESL class.









This girl really impressed me. The front of her book is beautiful. She finished early, so she began designing the back. I didn't ask the students to think about the arrangement of hands on the front cover, but merely to overlap the hands to cover the entire page. She took this to the next level when she designed her back cover. It's things like this back cover that make you smile and realize your students are learning, applying their understanding independently, taking risks, and finding success!


































I read this passage in The Art of Teaching Art to Children on Friday night:

Sometimes the art room gets really quiet. It's the tip-0ff that the kids are deeply involved. I haven't asked the children to be quiet. They are simply expressing their involvement in the work by a high level of intensity, combined with a deep focus. They are immersed in the art materials and in themselves.

I started tearing up. Already, there have been many quiet classes in the art room. I love to facilitate this type of involvement in art, in the process of creation!


Sometime, I need to write about 3rd grade. They're awesome! The discussions we have about art, their increasing drawing skills, and the crazy portraits they're drawing of their classmates...it's a great time!

Pictures of My Classroom!

Sorry the picture is a little bit blurry. It's a good overview of my classroom, though. There are three tables, each with six stools (red table, closest to the camera, yellow, to the left, and blue, closest to the door and easel).

There's also a supply table/teacher's desk in the corner behind the door. It's not really my desk, because my desk is in the fine arts office, right across the hall. You can see the blue sign for the office through my classroom door. My name is on the blue sign, along with the other art and music teachers.

Behind the supply desk, the words next to "ART" are the character traits for the year.

I have lots of bins of supplies, labeled with post-it notes (by the previous teacher). Working on the organization of supplies is a long term goal, especially as we purchase more supplies.

All the paintings above the shelving are from the secondary classes last year. They will probably come down and get moved to the new secondary art classroom.







(Last year was the first year at this campus, and all the art classes for both teachers were taught in this room. The secondary classroom is a work in progress, but functioning this school year. Slowly, this classroom is transforming into an elementary space as Mrs. Greene's classroom gets set up.)









Here's the front of the room. Below is a detail of the displays I made during the staff days before school started. The "Flavorful Folds" display was Miss Emily's idea! There should be a similar display in an elementary art classroom in Pennsylvania.

Beyond the traditional hot dog and hamburger folds, Miss Emily introduced me to the taco fold (square paper folded diagonally), the burrito fold (folded in thirds), and the kite fold, a variation of the taco which I decided to call the ice cream fold (keeping with the food theme).

I also spelled my name for the students, though I'm certain most will call me "Miss M."

The "Awesome Artists" wording of the rules was also Miss Emily's idea, though I'm not certain of her specifics for how to be an awesome artist. Mine are:

Awesome Artists are excited about ART
Awesome Artists do their best job
Awesome Artists treat others kindly
Awesome Artists take care of supplies
Awesome Artists follow the teacher's directions

Of course, since many of my students come from homes where English is not the primary language, I realized I needed to make sure my international students knew the word "awesome." The subtle difference when you teach at an international school...

Below is a detail of my construction paper shelves.

I love the colors!

































Here are the "in-progress" sketchbook covers of the prize-winning second graders (a class of only five students, for now). They were captivated by this project! Then again, what student doesn't love tracing their hand...

This student's cover is almost finished. I think it will be stunning when he finishes the small shapes from where all his fingers overlap in the middle of the page.