Wood Art Ed

For quite a while, I have read about TAB and choice based art ed. There is a lot that appeals to me with the theory but I have never seen a structure that I felt would work for me in my classroom. In the weeks leading up to winter break, I started thinking more and more about gamifying the classroom. I decided to take the plunge and so now my 1st-5th grade students will have a range of choices but with clear structures and support to make it manageable. I decided to utilize Google slides as a means of managing the game. It is free and a slide deck can provide secure, personalized communication between me and the students. I started by setting up a template. My slide deck has the rules of the game, a slide to track badges they earn and then numerous slides of challenges students can complete in order to earn a badge. The beauty is that since slides can have links, my challenge slides can have the learning targets then a picture of a sample project that would hit the targets. I make the

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

My kindergarten students study Mexico as a part of their social studies curriculum. Early in the school year, we make pinch pots, and this video shows how we can build off the basic pinch pot project to make a maraca. It is a fun project that makes cross-curricular connections with both Social Studies and Music. Students learn about how a maraca produces sound, how to work with clay to prevent pieces from sticking together and they learn a bit of science (#STEAM) as we discuss what happens to clay and paper in the kiln. Students need to understand that clay will shrink by about 10% as it dries out but that the paper will burn causing smoke and that gasses will expand as they are heated. If the exterior is shrinking while gasses on the interior are trying to expand, it will cause the sculpture to blow up and that is why they need to poke a few holes in their maracas to allow smoke to vent out. Kindergarten students are able to handle about 90% of this project without much problem, b

I always love finding ways to play with traditional materials in new ways. To be honest, clay was never my forte. My first years teaching every clay project was basically a pinch pot, or a pinch vase, pinch bowl etc. A few years ago, I started to look more critically at my weakest areas and take steps to improve. Placing your cell phone in a bowl or cup will act as DIY speaker/amplifier. Rather than putting my phone in a bowl, I now put my phone or tablet into a ceramic speaker I made. I simply put a pinch pot on its side then cut a slot in the back and decorate. My recommendation is to build monsters, but I give students options on how they want to decorate the form. My preference for monsters is because, with fictive creatures, there is no right or wrong allowing students to focus more on principles of design at play - using rounded or pointed features to create a mood etc. Kids have a lot of fun making these and I think it is always nice to have art that is functional (particu