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.

Graphing with Grade 4

I like things to be pretty.
                                 Well-designed.
                                            Aesthetically pleasing.

But sometimes, the function is the main thing.

Today, I made a rudimentary graph. Then I snapped a picture of it. And now I'm posting it. See, just this weekend, I read Mr. E's post about graphing favorite shapes. I've done similar things before, but with that post fresh in my mind and five extra minutes at the end of 4th grade art, I decided to do an informal poll of the students. They had just spent the period doing a continuous line drawing of their shoe followed by another (not necessarily continuous) line drawing of their shoe. Afterwards, they selected their favorite and mounted it on a piece of colored paper.

      So which was their favorite?

As much as the kids complain about the challenge of a continuous line drawing, I knew from last year that many students select that as the better of their drawings. How many today? I asked each student, just placing a dot in the rectangle to signify each response. The class was almost evenly split.

It was quick. It was ugly. I'm glad I did it. We practiced math skills while recognizing diverse opinions and reflecting on our own art.

Now I want to create a more permanent unlabeled graph for future activities. The question is where and how...

For the love of art...

I, like many people, have been reading old posts.

For the record: While I am gratefully overwhelmed by the massive amount of pageviews this past month (something I mainly attribute to art teachers using pinterest to prepare for a school year), I am slightly sad to see the emphasis on posts that are two and three years old! I hope it doesn't break your heart, pinterest art teachers, but I don't even have the art class jobs anymore. Eeek! So while I still stand by my "stool inspector," I'm not using that system anymore. What excites me is my new systems, new displays, and even my consortium's new standards for visual arts!

As I was perusing posts with pictures of my room (and boy was it UGLY my first year--the wall color, the TV shelf, the dangling lights--a fresh paint job, new TV, CORK WALLS, and colorful displays make such a difference!),
I stumbled upon the sweetest story:

Yesterday, I painted with 9 first grade students during the last period of the day. We had about 15 minutes between classes. It was just enough time for me and Mrs. Yang to set up 9 painting stations, fully equipped with water, paper towels, two paintbrushes, a 15x20 sheet of paper, and a palette with red, yellow, blue, and white paint.

Side note: My students were so excited to paint this week that one student brought paintbrushes from home! Waiting to come into the room in the hallway outside the classroom, another student commented "but she only has 7 paintbrushes!" I assured him that I had paintbrushes too, and every student would get a paintbrush, even if she didn't have enough for everyone in class...

Jumping forward to year five, yesterday was the first day of the second art classes of the year. I had one class of first grade, one class of third grade, and one class of fifth grade. The fifth graders--those students were first graders during my first year. First graders who were so excited to paint that they brought their own paint brushes! As for this year's first grade, amazingly it was another class of 9 and I was painting with them. It's really a beautiful thing!

     The magic of mixing paint with six year olds.

And the third graders. They were the first class of the morning. I was lazy this year and didn't communicate to the classroom teachers about art smocks but these third graders brought them anyway. As they lined up at my door, a few students mentioned the new boy's art smock. "Yeah, it's nice!" I told them, glancing quickly at the plastic apron. It had pictures of art supplies in the pockets. Cute. It wasn't for another three or four minutes that I realized what they were talking about. It didn't have pictures of art supplies; he brought his own supplies to class! Pockets full of markers, scissors, and glue. His own artistic toolbelt!

It's been five years.
Some of the excitement is gone.

But for him, our relationship is just beginning.

It was our first real day of art-making, together. He is precious. He enthusiasm is inspiring. He's one of the reasons I love my job.

Thank you!

Beautiful (OOPS) Bulletin Board!

It's a week into school. 9 days to be exact, but today was the start of the 2nd art classes of the year. With each class finished the introduction and oops, I spent the afternoon stapling all 115 projects onto the two bulletin boards.


I know there are differing views on exposed cork, borders, and asymmetrical displays, but I think the chaotic-overlapping-and-hanging-over-the-edge aesthetic works well for this project.

The kids were already peeking on their way to music class, searching for their oops on the board!

What's that you're reading?

Teachers have lots of different ideas about what students should do when they finish early.

In addition to free draw and other art-making activities, I have a reading corner. Students can elect to free read instead of free draw. It's always good to encourage reading!

Our bookshelf is color-coded and organized into three categories. The colored dot on the spine of the book coordinates with the shelf label so students know the correct shelf for returning books. It works, most of the time...

So what are we reading? Here are some books I've collected these five years...

Stories about Art: These are your classic storybooks with an art-related theme. Many of these are well-known and loved by elementary art teachers around the world.

          Ish
          The Dot
          The Art Lesson
          Art
          A Day with No Crayons
          I Ain't Gonna Paint No More!
          Mouse Paint
          White Rabbit's Color Book
          Lines that Wiggle
          When a Line Bends...a Shape Begins
          Iggy Peck, Architect
          Beautiful Oops!
          Hands: Growing up to be an Artist
          Harold and the Purple Crayon
          Pantone: Colors


Famous Artwork: The books on this shelf vary greatly but are held together because they contain many works from art history. Some have descriptive texts; others are I SPY or alphabet books. Museum ABC's is a particular favorite. I was given a copy at my high school graduation party with the sweetest inscription. For my students, I love how it shows them how the same idea can be depicted in different ways at different times and in different cultures.

          Museum ABC
          Museum Shapes
          Museum 123
          Art is...
          Name That Style
          No One Saw
          3-D ABC
          The Art Book for Children
          The Art Book for Children, Book Two
          I Spy: An Alphabet in Art




Artist Biographies: I don't spend much time emphasizing specific artists with my students. These biographies allow them to focus on artists that pique their interests. In addition, 3rd-5th graders are required to fill out one artist worksheet per quarter to go in their art class portfolio. I give class time to allow for this activity.

Artist Biographies come in a few categories...for another time!


Do you have books you love?