New school year, New ideas

Well, school has officially started (well teacher work days) and I am trying to switch things up for the year in my classroom.  I am thinking of a huge colorwheel on the wall and grouping some art elements and principal posters together ...the bad news is that I have to travel between to campuses and sadly I dont have a classroom at one campus...well that actually remains to be up in the air at this time, but its not looking good.
So the first few days have been a whirlwind but look for updates on my new ideas for the classroom and soon to be art cart.

First Annual TMSA art night

 The Main Street Academy first annual Art Night

I am not sure where to begin explaining how wonderful, how successful, and how magical this night was...first was the set up with the help of so many wonderful volunteers.  My dear friend Kristin was a rock star with set up and keeping me focused.  All this came together in less than 6 hours, calling in extra volunteers at the last minute and everything was set and ready at 5. 
The families started flowing in and were overjoyed by the gallery feel of the event.  I had over 600 pieces of art, a beautiful spread of fruit, cheese and deserts donated by our PTO and another close friend, 26 painted wooden chairs for auction (which brought over 2,000 dollars) and music performed by our 6th grade students.
I could have asked for a better night.  The artwork was stunning and looking at these pictures now, taking it all in, I am proud to say that TMSA has the most talented kids ever!! I knew all school year that they were working hard and carefully followed my directions, but when I sit here in the silence of my living room, reflecting on a school year, I am so proud, so happy to be a part of this school and these kids.

Wooden Chairs painted for our Silent Auction

So we are having a school wide art show Tuesday night and my favorite part is going to be the silent auction for 26 wooden chairs our students have painted...My students came up with various themes and have been working for weeks to make sure their chair brings the most cash....I will post pictures of the art night after the show..but here is a sneak peak of the chairs

Its an optopus

Kindergarten had a blast creating these fun pieces.  First I give every student a 3/4 paper plate and they chose a color of paint.  I asked they cover the plate and then sat it aside to dry.  Next step was curing the 8 legs with pencils.  All the kids LOVED it.  All was left was to cut eyes and a mouth and wham.....These are so fun and an easy one day project.

Gustav Klimt Tree of Life

Thanks to blogger One Crayola Short...I found this great lesson on Gustav Klimt and the Tree of Life.

My 4th grade students loved the abstract swirls and added sparkle....First we painted looked at Klimt's Tree of Life and studied how to create a good tree using a Y shape.  Then we added swirls for each branch.  I first wanted the kids to paint with just one color on the background, but found they had better ideas..they used watercolors to fill in the background and finished the tress adding gems and sparkles...this was a huge success and everyone has raved how beautiful they turned out.

A Puzzling Still Life

 

This is a great lesson with so many parts...2nd Grade studied still lives and we had so much fun connecting to everyday life.  We looked at various artwork that was either a still life or not and compared the artwork.  Next I gave each table a vase, some flowers (fake), and a variety of fruits and veggies (from m kids play kitchen).  I had the kids arrange a still life on their table a could of times to make sure everyone got a turn.  After the last turn was had we drew the still life on the table with pencil.  After the drawings were done we traced with a sharpie (of course).  On the next class time we painted the still life.  On the last day I cut their paper on the 2 inch and then 4 inch (10 inch x16inch paper).  I let the kids pick a piece of colored construction paper and told them to figure out the puzzle before any gluing....when they were done I made sure they didn't forget the spacing between the pieces to give the window effect.  This was really challenging for some but I found that all really loved the effort and were very patient for me to help.  They look so wonderful hanging in the room.

Rare Trophy Fish