Enamel art with college students

I teach a class of college students about art methods at the elementary, middle, and high school levels. This semester we are focusing on high school methods. Students were given copper sheets, bench pins, and jewelry saws. After a demonstration they designed and cut their own pendents. During another class I showed them how to enamel the surface of their copper pendents.

Animal observation drawings with pastel

First graders are learning about animals growing from babies to adults in their classrooms right now. I just acquired an assortment of plastic animal figurines and thought they would be helpful for my observational drawing unit. Each first grader was allowed to blindly pull a figurine from my assortment.  We discussed the many parts that animals have and using the space to fill up the paper. Once we finished drawing, students were given pastels to add color to their work. We did this in one 45 minute class period.

First grade pastel pumpkins

After practicing blind contour drawings last week, students put their observational skills to use. I brought some pumpkins into class for them to draw and then apply pastel.

Classroom mural

I found this project idea on a blog somewhere. I'm going to tag the blogger as soon as I can find them. I had an assistant help me draw out the one of the designs and then I cut each one into 80 pieces. There were enough pieces for four classes. This was a great project to get work up on the walls for my schools open house.

Clean up strategies...

I now have a brand new classroom! I've been so busy with moving three old classrooms into a new school that I haven't worked on this blog at all. I plan to put some pictures up soon to show off the amazing space I now get to work with. Unfortunately, I only teach part time in my new space because my position was cut due to budget issues in my district. This means that my new room is empty for half the day!

Ooops...I don't want to get too distracted. I really want to write about some management strategies I've been working on because my new room has three sinks! I didn't have any sinks before and this is a big change. It was very difficult using 5 gallon buckets to get the kids cleaned up at the end of class and the water was hard to change but I managed through it. Now that I have sinks I'm working on mastering the best way to get the tables clean, the students clean, the materials put away, and also making sure the floor stays dry! 

The best solution that I've worked out for this is to assign sinks to specific tables. In my new room I have 6 tables. Each one is labeled with a color from the rainbow. Sink #1 is assigned to Red and Orange tables, Sink #2 is assigned to Yellow and Green, and Sink #3 is assigned to Blue and Purple. Each sink has a tote with 4 colored sponges (that match the tables), 4 plastic water cups, and 4 drying rags. There are also tubs at each of the sinks with water in them for dropping used brushes into. 

All tables are asked to start clean up by clearing their tables. Projects go on the drying rack, brushes and water cups get dropped off at the sink, and other materials returned to the cart. Then I remind students about proper use of sponges, the sinks, running, and line up procedures. I call on two people from each table to be spongers and two people to be dryers. The spongers wash while the dryers push in chairs. They line up while the dryers finish the tables. Dryers line up shortly after. 

At times this can be a little chaotic. I have to remind students not to run, sometimes I find drying rags in the sink, and voices can get a little high. This is a new routine for my students so the first and second weeks were pretty rough. I had to remind myself that this will take practice and that it is a new and exciting activity for students. 

Going into my third week using these clean up strategies I have noticed students adapting to the new procedures. It takes at least ten minutes start to finish but the tables are clean and ready for the next group that arrives just as the cleaning group is silently lined up and waiting.

I'm sure that there are many other ways to do this. Any tips or other ideas?

SHARPENING!!!

I have to say that I never realized how much time is taken up at the elementary level sharpening pencils. Why don't I let the kids do it? Well, one reason is that my pencil sharpeners are terrible! I've already had two electric sharpeners die on me and my manual ones shred the pencils! Also, I have found that students k-4 are obsessed with sharpening their pencils. They would be perfectly happy if I just let them sharpen their pencils all class (they purposely break their pencils so they have a reason to go to the sharpener!) I don't know what to do? The other day I spent an entire prep block sharpening and sharpening. Next year I am going to buy the most expensive industrial sharpener so that I won't destroy my hands at the manual sharpener.

Full swing!

Well, I'm in the midst of my second week of school and wow! I'm already a little worn out. I see over 100 kids a day and don't know how to keep up. I have bursts of energy and also moments of hopelessness. The kids certainly do keep me going. They are so excited and enthusiastic that it is hard not to be right there with them. I try not to lose my patience when students get disruptive and to remain calm when it seems like all "you know what" might break loose. But in the end it's a lot of hard work! Here are some before and after pictures of the revamping I've been working on to get ready for school in 3 "new to me" classrooms.

I started out with one room like this   

A bunch of randomness everywhere!       

 Then I started to organize! I got colored bins, started some bulletin boards, used a lot of blogs for help.

A cafeteria classroom... before

After

This is all the space I have in my second cafeteria classroom! I haven't organized anything yet in this picture.

These are some pictures of the first room I started to organize after about 16 hours of clean up.

 Some storage boxes for each class that I see through out the day. It helps me keep the work separated and easier to find.