a little happy

One of the things I love about my school the most is the permanent art that we have on display here. Our cow now lives in the outdoor classroom garden. He makes me happy every time I see him! When I pause to think about permanent works that I have created with my students lots of fun memories come to mind.  Have you created any permanent pieces at your school? Share the links in comments - we would love to see. Here are a few of mine below:

Recycled bottle Chihuly sculpture

Keith Haring wood sculptures

Domino Mona Lisa (I need a better pic of this!)

 Stuart Davis Installations

Wordle Wall

Welcome back! It is hard to imagine that it is already the 2013-2014 school year. I am excited to be back and I am recommitting myself to the blog this year. When I logged on and realized my last post was in November I was shocked. We did so many great things last year in "The Crayon Lab"! Reflecting back, I know exactly why I stopped blogging, and hopefully this year will be different. 

There is a lot of newness here this year. I am trying to embrace it with excitement, but it's a challenge. One thing that has not changed is my love of technology. This years word wall is a "wordle" wall! Do you know Wordle? If you don't you need to check it out. It is a fun and easy way to create a word cloud. I use them in my PPTS, handouts, and projects! 

Real art? Real artists?

My favorite part of the Woodruff Salutes Arts in Education event was the student art show I had as part of the event. My students often tell me "I am going to be an artist when I grow up!" My standard answer is that they are ALREADY artists and they don't have to wait until the grow up! Having a show of their work at the Woodruff Arts Center - which is a major visual and performing arts center located in Atlanta - is VERY exciting! I could not be more proud of their work and how very professional the show was! Is it real art? You bet and it was made by real artists!

Lots and lots of planning before hand. I thought I was going to have one small wall so we were working on a salon style hanging. The toes belong to The Lake Forest Louvre.

I had a lot of great help to make it a reality! Isn't the space pretty?

Fifth grader self-portraits in the style of Howard Finster. Their personal poems are as interesting as their art!

Chihuly

This photograph of my student Chihuly sculpture has been up on my flickr site for about 3 years. It is one of my most top viewed images! So in the spirit of generating more traffic for my new blog - not to be confused with my old blog - or my other blog....I have decided to post directions on how to make it here!

I started by collecting as many recycled water bottles as I could with my students. The original plan was to have a warm colored sculpture AND a cool colored sculpture. In the end we only made one because it required so many bottles we ran out! Students used various colors of watered down acrylic paint and swirled it around the inside of the water bottles. When the bottles were dry I used a box cutter to cut small slits in the bottom of each one. Students then used this hole to begin cutting their bottles in a spiral from the bottom to the mouth piece. Students wired their bottles at the top with some floral wire and then made another one (and another, and another).

The armature was a cone a created out of chicken wire. Just imagine a giant ice cream cone and that is what it looked like. I used a little wire to hold it together and a stronger piece of wire across the top so it would hang. Students then took individual bottles and attached them to the armature through the chicken wire holes. That was it - so simple!

D-D-D

That's right - 3D!!!!!!!!!!!! Fifth grade students are learning to draw from direct observation. Through the use of diminsional line and shading techniques they will be able to realistically draw these forms. Can you name them all?

When we are done they will look like this:

How Do I Get Graded?

Hello Parents:
I am The Crayon Lab, your child's art teacher at school. I would like to explain to you how your child is graded in art. Children will receive a subject grade and a conduct grade in art four times a year.

Art Education in our County is based on an approach known as Discipline-Based Art Education (DBAE). It is important to understand we do not grade children's artwork, rather, we grade art learning. Discipline-based art education draws its contents from four areas of instruction:
1) Art Production (making art)
2) Art History (exploring artistic heritage of many cultures)
3) Art Criticism (analyzing the qualities and features of art)
4) Aesthetics (thinking about art and making well-reasoned judgements about art)

Evaluating progress in art education is complex. Evaluating artistic growth in artistic expression, art knowledge, skills mastered, and attitudes enriched, as well as conduct and social behavior in the art class, can provide a profile of your child's total progress in art and help me guide him/her to further growth. A variety of ways are used to assess progress at the elementary level, such as quizzes, demonstration, discussion, sketchbooks, and my own observations.

It is important to keep in mind that it is not your child's artwork that is being graded, but your child's progress in art learning. If you have any questions about our art education program, please do not hesitate to contact me at school. Thank you! We are going to have an excellent school year!

Welcome Back!

Welcome back to the art room for another exciting year!