Sketchbooks 2.0

I have finally gotten my act together and I've made a sample sketchbook.  This is the type I will be using for Kindergarten and 1st grade.  It's small, and easy to make FOR the kids. 

I just made a plain old little book, with card stock for the cover.  I trimmed the copy paper inside to be 8.5 x 10.5 or thereabouts, just to make sure the cover hung over the edges a little bit.

Our workroom has one of these fascinating devices which I am honestly in love with at the moment.  It's called a saddle stapler.  I'd never heard of it until moments ago.  Apparently you can put the folded book over the arch and staple into the crease without bending the staple!

See it.  Love it.

I think it will be very easy to make a million of these for the littles, and I might even decide to make them for the big kids next year, if all goes well.  Right now the big kids are using their brad-folders with blank paper inside as their sketchbooks.  But I feel like those will be harder to use for drawing, since they won't lay flat.  Ideally, I would like to have all the books spiral bound but I suppose that's dreaming...since I don't have anybody to help me do that, and they would all be huge when we were done.

Even though I love my red Swingline stapler, it isn't really up to this task.

I'll let you know how things go!  My plan is to have all the sketchbooks made by the end of the next class rotation, and have all the kids ready to draw in them ASAP.  I want to start the year with a Zentangle lesson so they will all have some go-to art activity when they finish things or when I have a sub.



Sketchbooks

So every year I try to refine and perfect things I messed up the year before.  Don't we all?  Last year, due to the sheer numbers of kids I had, some of them never actually got the lovely "art journal" packets I made.  New kids came and went, and every time a new kid showed up, I had to run off another packet.  Our copier is in use all the time, and I never seemed to be able to get in there to get that done.  So my solution is this:  Blank pages!  Yes, instead of art journals with tons of....ok let's face it...they were worksheets...My kids will have a sketchbook.  This is where I'll have them do thumbnail sketches, and when they are finished with the day's work they can choose a sketchbook prompt from the board, or from a list I'll print off.  I anticipated confusion, but when I said the word "sketchbook" today for the first time, there were plenty of positive responses from the kiddos. 

Let it be known, I am not a big fan at all of free draw in my class.  The kids tend to waste paper, and leave a mess, and even rush through the project so that they can draw whatever they want.  That's not ok.  They're supposed to be doing their best work all the time,  right?

I usually take the recycled paper from the workroom and let the kids use the blank side for free draw.  This is what

my free draw center looks like pretty much every day.  Tiki Man is angry.

So I just hole punched a pile of white copier paper and had each kid take 10 pages for now, and put them in the brad folders they were supposed to bring to class.  Today I only had time to give one class a sketchbook prompt.  Some of them sat and thought for a long time about it.  I told them it's ok to write in your sketchbook instead of draw.  It's for saving ideas.  So if they are pictures or words, it doesn't matter.  Studies have shown that working consistently in a sketchbook can help improve literacy.  Seriously.  That's what I read.  Somewhere.  I wish I could link you. 

Now I need a nice, organized way to store them.  I had been using colored file boxes, but they are really too small and tore up easily.  I need some rubbermaids, or maybe a shelf system.  If you use sketchbooks with elementary kids, what do you do?  Do you give prompts, or let them just draw and collage freely?  I'd really like to know.  This is something I hope I can be consistently utilizing rather than free draw or busywork.

Have a great start to the year!

Variety Paintings

I do a lot of abstract art with the littles. They are better at making "lines, shapes, and colors" than they are at making realistic subjects.

So for our painting lesson, we looked at the work of Kandinsky and talked about Variety.  We learned the sign language for Variety, Line, Shape, and Color, and we painted like super artists.  This week we took the paintings and added even more variety by using skinny markers in the white spaces.  I LOVE THE RESULTS:

How to Paint with Kindergarten. ALL THE COLORS!

I am an elementary art teacher, and I ain't scared.  I can have my Kindergarteners (usually a class of about 30) paint.  YES, TEMPERA PAINT!  I'm sure you have your favorite way to manage paint in your classroom, but here is the method I've found to work the absolute BEST.

First of all, I love tempera cakes for littles.  For the big kids, not so much.  The little ones though do very well, and set up is minimal.  Firstly, I have seven tables in my classroom.  On each table I place a tray (I bought these from School Specialty, but you could use muffin tins if you prefer.  They're the perfect size.) And in each tray are ONLY one color of tempera cakes.  Each table though, gets a different color.

Next to the paint, I place a large cup with a wide bottom with brushes in it.  NO WATER.  I hate for paintbrushes to soak in water, for many reasons.  But with the littles, they inevitably tip it over, so I just don't give it to them.  :)

Here's how it works.  During my instructions the paint and brushes are on the table, but the tempera cakes are dry.  After my directions, I then squirt water into each of the paint trays using a little squeeze bottle.  Once a table has wet paint, I let them get up to get their art shirts.  I usually don't give them water until they show me where they've written their names on their paper.  This accountability is good for them, and they've begun to police each other. 

After they are shirted up, they can use the brushes on their table to "dab, dab, dab" in the wet paint, and "brush, brush brush" on their paper.  My colleage uses the phrase "tickle the paint" and I like that as well.  After they are done with the color at their own table, here's the trick.  They put that paintbrush BACK IN THE CUP.  Then they pick up their paper and MOVE TO ANOTHER TABLE!  I have children wandering freely around my room, and the paint doesn't get mixed up because the brushes live next to the paint tray, and stay with their own color.

I wash the brushes at the end of class, because I still don't really trust Kinders to do that.  Maybe one day.  Dream a little dream.

Clean up is easy too.  I give a couple kids the job of returning the brushes and the paint trays to me.  (More on how I assign jobs later.)  And then I go around the room and when a kid is in their own seat, I give them a baby wipe.  We then have a "dirtiest baby wipe contest."  This keeps the kiddos from throwing away their wipe when it still has wiping power.  I can also tell who is actively looking for paint to clean up.  And they LOVE this.  Whoever has the dirtiest baby wipe usually gets a little perk, like an extra big behavior buck or a sticker or whatever.

Finished Thiebaud Cupcakes

These turned out really cute!

The finished project

 

 

Shaving cream "paint" still wet

I ended up just mixing the "frosting" paint in a ziploc bag, about 2 bottles of Elmer's glue to half a can of shaving cream.  I cut the corner of the baggie off and squeezed the frosting on the cupcakes myself.  The Kindergarteners were not able to use the small squeeze bottles efficiently, and ended up with not enough frosting, or way too much.  Thus, I let them add more details, like the crinkles on the cupcake wrappers and the sprinkles and cherry. 

The frosting paint took TWO FULL DAYS to dry.  Beware of taking them off the drying rack and storing them when the frosting is dry-ish, even dry to the touch, it can still squish out from underneath and get them hopelessly stuck together.

UPDATE:  I've since made this project even better by mixing in one more element:  JELLO.  See my blog on Chocolate Paint.  After I tried it that way, I noticed the paint drying very hard, but it still had texture.  I wanted the texture to be fluffy though!  So I mixed about a half a box of JELLO pudding powder into a half a gallon ziploc baggie with a fourth a can of shaving cream and a half a bottle of glue.  I made two batches; one chocolate and one vanilla.  Below are the results of this experiment:

See how fluffy they are!  They have to be staggered on the drying rack, because they even rise a little bit as they dry.  Some students decided to make ice cream cones instead of cupcakes.  I like that idea, too. 

The finished product!  If you look closely you can see a little indentation on the left side where the drying rack smushed the icing a bit as it dried.

 

So far I like the Jello/Shaving cream/glue paint the best.  But for different applications, I can see how the other types could be very useful too!

Wayne Thiebaud Inspired Cupcakes with Texture! (And the Joy of Pinterest)

This is my new favorite Kindergarten lesson.  I might even try it with Second grade just to see how far I can push it.  First, I talk about texture and show the kiddos a short video clip.  Then I set up "centers" in the room for the different textures.  At one table, I set up tissue paper and watered down glue, and let the kids cover a half sheet of drawing paper with the crinkly textured paper.  For this example, I just used straight water, and pulled off the tissue when it all dried.  The dye left the inpression of texture, just visual texture, not tactile.  But for the kids I put a little bit of glue in the water, and so far they are doing just fine with this technique.

At another table, I set up my "epic sparkle paint" or "lumpy paint" as I called it in one class.  I just literally poured all the remnants of various specialty paints I had into a cool whip container and mixed it all up.  I had mostly gold tempera, with various colors of glitter glue and loose glitter, and some "texture-it" paint.

The kids painted another half sheet of drawing paper with the gold sparkle paint.  I ALMOST let them use their hands for this, but with 28 kindergarteners in a class at a time, I couldn't deal with it all.  if you have a smaller class, or you want to do each step one day at a time, then it might work to let them use their hands.  I've done that with first grade before, and it was a lovely mess.  :)

At the third table I set up texture rubbing plates, crayons without paper, and free draw scrap paper.  This was a great filler activity, because it related to what we were making, but they could take it with them, instead of having to let it dry. 

On day two, after talking about the fabulous Wayne Thiebaud and his deliciously textured paintings, the kiddos will be given trapezoid-shaped stencils to trace onto their gold paper and cut out.  Those will be glued onto the tissue paper background with glue sticks. 

Finally, the PUFFY PAINT!!  This was so easy I almost choked with joy.  :)  In a ziploc bag, I squirt equal parts Elmer's glue and cheap Shaving cream.  I smush it all up.  Thenm I empty the air out of the bag and reseal it.  I cut the corner of the bag off and squeezed it out just like icing!  You may have to make a fresh batch for each class, so don't make too much at once!  I am trying to get some red pom poms or buttons to add to the top of our cupcakes as little cherries.  I've also seen people use colored rice for sprinkles. 

I like this puffy paint better than other texture paints, which I've made with sawdust and joint compound in the past.  This was just so fun to squeeze and it even smells nice!

I am a little worried I might have some kiddos try to eat their cupcakes.  Haha!  And you know what, while this project is ever so slightly cutesy, I like that it can be so closely tied to the Element of Texture and the artist Thiebaud.  It's almost over the top for me, but the puffy paint made it way fun.  Above is my Gigi's style cupcake, with 90% icing.  :)

I am going to experiment with another texture paint recipe I found on Pinterest.  This one uses flour, salt, and tempera paint.  They put it in condiment bottles, and that may be easier to mix up than the shaving cream. 

By the way, if you are an Art Educator, a teacher, or a parent, you MUST check out Pinterest.  It's a bulletin board system for pictures and links.  I can't say enough wonderful things about it.  Since I made my boards I have tried countless recipes, activities, and even put together outfits, and teaching ideas just because of other people's brilliance.  Lost of hits for my blog there too!  Here's a link to my pinterest page, feel free to follow me!

My Pinterest

Assessment Rubrics

Yes, assessment.  How do we assess students in the elementary art room?  I give conduct grades, and most of the time it's a default S unless I have documentation that the kid has been particularly poorly behaved in class.  I have 790 kids.  They each do about 8 projects a year, so if I sit down and grade each one of them that totals 6320 grades per year.  Uh no.  Not doin' it.  My solution was to create a generic rubric for ALL projects, and then let the kids self-assess.  These assessments do NOT affect their conduct grades, but it is a good indication for me of who doesn't get the project objectives, and how they each feel about their work.  The first part of the rubric says "I CAN statements."  This is a district wide buzz word for "lesson objectives."  I have the lesson objectives posted on the board and I ask students to look at those and decide whether they honestly "CAN" do all those things.  For example, the statement might be "I CAN create patterns using lines."  If they have completed all the objectives, they get a 3 or in the case of the littles, they could get a :). 

BIG KID (Grades 3 and up) Assessment Rubric:



The kids are having their first experience with these self assessments this week, and so far it's going fairly well.  I have to talk it through with the littles, and probably I'll have to do that with the bigs as they finish up their project.  Since this is a new thing, I expect them to be a little weirded out at first.  But assessment was something I kept getting low marks for on my evaluations, so I've attempted to cover it this way, without making myself nuts trying to give individual grades.


LITTLE KID (K-2) Assessment Rubric:

After attending TN Arts Academy this summer and having a long conversation with an Arts educator about assessment in the Arts, I decided that it is very important, but it must be treated differently than assessment models for academic subjects.  After all, if you judge a fish on its ability to climb a tree, it will spend its whole life feeling like a failure.

I am having mixed feelings about the whole initiative to perhaps include the related arts on standardized tests eventually.  Yes, thank you, powers that be, for finally concluding that the Arts are important enough to be measured....but...please don't make me teach to a test...because I have a feeling that's what it'll come to.  We are already crunched for time and I am cramming as much material into my lessons as possible, but seeing the kids once a week (or less in some cases) for 45 minutes means that they have a hard time retaining much.

Anyway just a thought.  At least self-assessment is helpful feedback for me, and it holds the kid somewhat accountable.