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nd slightly corny video i found through pinterest careful it s catchy and will get stuck in your head for the entire day next we read where the wild things are the beloved classic after we read the book we went back and took a long hard look at the wild things we discussed their implied textures and how it looked like it felt a certain way there is always one kid in every class that shares how each wild thing is made up of different animals which is a great segway into the project it s a cat and a fish get it it s a catfish aiden as i send students back to their seats i ask them to think of an animal and raise their hand next students help me build an original wild thing using four or more animals the kids tend to get real excited and a bit rowdy at this point who can blame them when there is a tiger turtle wolf snail dragon on the board next the kids draw their own wild things using their own idea on a piece of paper they need to make sure to draw their implied textures when they are done i tape their papers onto a piece of aluminum hand them a magazine and tell them to trace their wild thing really hard on top of the magazine i don t tell them why i want them to discover it themselves sure enough about two seconds into tracing they figure it out one by one and its a beautiful sight the students realize that as they are tracing their pictures it is transferring to the metal and you can actually feel it their implied texture is now actual texture after their wild things are traced i show them how to tool their metal by pushing parts with either their pencil or a capped marker we discuss how you have to visualize what you want and then think it through for example if i want my tiger stripes to pop out on the front i need to push them in from the back or if i want my scales to sink into my animal i need to push them in from the front there is some serious visualized and planning during this step you can almost see the gears in their brain moving as they increase their spacial thinking after they are tooled to the students liking they color accordingly with permanent markers which is a treat within itself then once they are colored students cut them out carefully i told them to cut off extra if it got in their way and to be careful because the metal can be sharp lastly students created an original habitat for their wild thing to live their habitat could be based on a real place forest jungle volcano or could be made up candy land new planet an island made of cookies the goal for their habitat was to use their drawing and coloring skills to communicate to the audience what where the habitat was so if they did make candy land then they would need to figure out what kind of shapes and colors they would use to communicate that to a viewer after they drew their habitats with a black oil pastel they colored it in with chalk pastel i ask the students to channel goldilocks from the three bears when they color this comment gets a variety of gut reactions from the kids that range from giggles to pure confusion quickly i ask them about the porridge too hot too cold and just right the beds too hard too soft just right i explain that they need to color not too hard not too light but just right then they understand in their final class students blend their habitats starting at the lightest color to the darkest students bring me their habitat and wild things and show me where to hot glue their wild thing i absolutely love this project students get to be as original as possible while also learning some great technique and skills for most of my classes this whole thing from start to end took about three 50 minute sessions day one intro and transferring wild thing to metal day two start habitat day three finish habitat finish wild thing forgive the pictures the pictures no where near capture the awesomeness of this project metal is really hard to photograph posted by ms novak at 10 16 am no comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest labels 2 grade book inspiration texture 11 21 2014 blvisuals stadium elementary a few days after blvisual s visit to my fourth graders they sent me this video it really captures the excitement awe and pure awesome from the day when talking with my classes this last week many of them said if i had to score 1 10 i would say 100 posted by ms novak at 6 59 am no comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest labels 4 grade art careers artist inspired community passion visiting artist 11 14 2014 4th grade visiting artist blvisuals i can not come close to expressing in words the amount of joy wonder and excitement that filled my room yesterday afternoon blvisuals let each student pick their own colors for a bandana swirl them as desired and help dip rinse and dry while students were waiting for their turn at dipping or simply trying to be patient while their creat ion dried the group at blvisual s brought along some fancy glasses that order colors in your depth of field hot colors in the front closer to you and cold colors in the back further from you giving anything with hot and cold colors an element of 3 d it was amazing students loved looking at posters and their bandanas with the glasses students were also excited and encouraged to take their tapestry bandanas and hold them in front of color changing lights which in turn magically changed the colors on their bandanas every year each of the arts teachers in my building are in charge of bringing in an artist from our field our amazing pto sponsors these visiting artists and their workshops for our kids pretty sure my students would describe the visit as best day ever blvisuals dips most anything fabric and frequently travels to festivals and dips patron s arms their paint is a unique blend of acrylic paints their beautiful creations on skin last about the length of a temporary tattoo while being permanent on fabric it was a truly awesome day posted by ms novak at 11 17 am 2 comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest labels 4 grade artist inspired color theory community passion visiting artist 9 19 2014 second full week today ends the second full week of school to be honest it is finally starting to feel awesome to be back in the groove this was the first year that i didn t feel ready to come back i was mourning the loss of summer i think a lot of it had to do with the fact that last year was a pretty rough year there were a lot of changes in my school that i was struggling with embracing or even simply accepting this year is a bit better mostly because i am making a conscience effort to have a better attitude to accept the things i can not change and to embrace and love the things i can there are better days than others but it totally helps that i have some totally rockin colleagues that are helping me to keep me accountable on top of having an overall better attitude i am rediscovering my love of teaching i am remembering how much fun it is to teach art last year i felt annoyed quite a bit by my students choices and behaviors and while some of it was warranted it was mostly me just being grouchy so this year a clean slate for all including myself i have set my standards high for myself and my students i remind students quietly and gently unless there is safety involved i am hoping that if we can start out the year with love trust compassion a sense of humor and consistent expectations consequences that the students and i can have an even more productive and highly engaging year so far so good though it still is the end of the second full week i started off the year by asking students to show me about their summer on a piece of paper i did this project last year and loved it it takes only one day and i get to catch up with kiddos i can start building those relationships with the kids that need a little extra love to feel comfortable to succeed it gives me a chance to practice procedures and protocols without yacking at them for 50 minutes i also have a chance to fill bulletin boards with work for curriculum night the first week of school our first real projects began the next time i saw them i am hoping to include some more skills into their work this year without doing too many draw like this lessons i really love having them be creative and stretch their own ideas but i also am seeing some holes in their skills that i need to try and boost for the upper grades 3 5 i am starting guided sketchbooks this year each day they come i hand them a half sheet with some kind of guided drawing thinking lesson the students then work on them for 5 minutes without talking i am hoping these will help boost their drawing skills their observational skills their confidence their patience and even their problem solving skills as i answer no questions during the five minutes nor do i answer is this right before we started the sketchbooks i explained to the classes that it is about warming up the creative side of their brain in pe dance or music they do warm ups to prepare their bodies voices in art we have to wake up the creative side of their brains so far i have classes that really have embraced the 5 minutes and others really struggle with not asking for help or looking for the right answer i ask them to do their best and to work for the whole five minutes it has been interesting so far it seems that the classes that really embrace the 5 minutes seem to be more focused on their work come work time instead of it being social hour i will try and remember to report back at the end of the year to reflect on how it went over the course of the year after the students do their warm up sketchbook page for 5 minutes they add it to their sketchbook and prepare for that days lesson if students finish the day s lesson they go back and finish their sketchbook page s before they can do something off the finished list i am doing my best to step up my program in a way that we all work smarter not harder hopefully my new school year resolutions will hold throughout the year posted by ms novak at 3 23 pm 2 comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest labels passion 4 04 2014 thanks jeremiah this week i had a small group of students come to art a few minutes early i always love moments when i have just a handful of kids especially the normally quiet kids because i get a chance to really hear them these students had just come from a pull out support group for reading one kid we ll call him jeremiah puts his head on the table looks and me and says i don t like school there was a pause i am never really sure how to respond to this statement he then proceeds to say i don t like most of school i do like art and p e i asked him why he liked those parts of school he took a second and said i like art because i get to do things like paint and create in p e we get to run and play games i can t remember what i said or if class came in this quick conversation not only made my heart break but reminded me of why i do what i do i teach art for kids like jeremiah i teach art for kids that learning is a true struggle they have to work 3x as hard to learn the same information as normal kids everyday for 7ish hours they struggle then 2ish times a week they get to be normal they don t have to work so hard they can enjoy learning i teach art for the kids that need a place to smart to overcome their dyslexia their add their processing delays i teach art to gives kids a place to feel like everyone else while becoming more themselves thanks jeremiah for refreshing my perspective posted by ms novak at 9 16 am 2 comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest labels passion 3 07 2014 best pencil sharpener ever as an art teacher my pencil sharpeners get a lot of use and not the sweet gentle kind of use but rough use pencils colored pencils 800 kids a week kind of use i gave in a few years ago and bought one of those 150 oo pencil sharpeners and while it s still kicking just fine i have discovered this little hand crank pencil sharpener that does a way better job and wastes way less pencil i e mailed the guy at classroom friendly supplies to see if he would send one to me to try and out and write a review of it on this blog i warned him that it was going to be put through the paces in my art room and that i planned on using it for months before writing a review most pencil sharpeners can hold out for a month or two in the art room before starting to spit sputter over heat and then die all together i received my adorable pencil sharpener back in the fall and i had seen other classroom blogs rave about how well it sharpens they didn t lie this little baby does it all and does it like a champ i wasn t sure how it would do months later but honestly it s still sharpening like day one pros compact sharpens pencils both colored and normal to a crazy amazing point wastes less pencil no over sharpening here quiet price order replacement parts cons doesn t mount securely with the mount it comes with maybe i m just weak or my students real strong takes a little while to teach kids how to use it once they know it s a dream that it i have found that it sharpens normal pencils perfectly every time i had a whole bunch of economy pencils donated to my room those really terrible cheap ones where the lead isn t centered in the pencil and the erasers make pink streaks on paper instead of erasing i almost threw them all away because my 150 oo pencil sharpener couldn t handle the crooked lead they always sharpened having one wood side really long and no way to write with the lead on a whim i tried them in the classroom friendly sharpener and wha la they were sharpened just like any other pencil later in the year we were doing a project with colored pencils and colored pencils are terrible for normal pencil sharpeners the colored lead is way softer and almost gummy it messes with the blades and motor of normal pencil sharpeners most art teachers won t allow colored pencils and normal pencils to be sharpened in the same sharpener kind of like having paper scissors and fabric scissors same idea in my opinion i don t have time to hand out hand sharpeners to kids and then police them to make sure the shavings get in the trash or that they aren t making rosettes out of the sharpened pieces so i just have the kids use the electric sharpeners which is hard on the sharpener see the circle of issues okay so i took my classroom friendly sharpener and i put it to the test we sharpened colored pencil after colored pencil it sharpened them beautifully the only thing i had to be careful of was that the over sharpening protection for normal pencils doesn t work with the colored pencils the lead must be too thick or too soft about 4 full cranks and the colored pencils were sharp the only other issue was that the lead of the colored pencils would occasionally break in the sharpener and i d have to ta...