Wood Art Ed

It's that time again. I came back from parental leave just in time for the final week of school. I am super happy to be able to see the kids one last time to bring closure to the year. Before I sneak out trying to avoid the glare of the custodians I know must hate me, I'm working with students on a few final bits. I have found that having each class take on one task makes things a lot easier. I am starting class this week by having each class sort out one material. I emptied the buckets of markers, crayons, colored pencils, chalks etc. and each class started with just 5 minutes of sorting. It is incredibly satisfying to see all the junky materials purged and have all the good stuff sorted by medium and color. After kids take responsibility for care for the materials, we proceed with a simple project for the day. I like to start and end my school year with a big, collaborative piece. In the start of the school year, we talk about procedures and expectations then every class...

The last month or so has been exceptionally hectic. My most thrilling activity lately has been taking care of my new baby daughter who was just too eager to get out into the world and made her appearance a few weeks early. Just before starting my parental leave, I had tons of fun screen printing t-shirts with the entire school. I had tried simple screen printing with a few kids but never tried printing shirts with a whole class, so I figured why not try it with the entire school the first time around. The process is fairly simple. I had classes make designs the weeks before printing. Kids made black and white designs that could be translated into stencils. I had every student make a design, then classes voted on one design for their class. I used my Cameo Silhouette cutter to cut stencils of their designs. If you haven't tried screen printing with your students, I highly recommend it. Using a stencil method it is fairly easy for even young students to be successful and kids are s...