Student ROAR!

Shout out to one of my wonderful students!  We began our Hispanic Heritage Month projects this week and her class is learning about the art of the Mola.  We learned about the many layers of colors within a mola and created animal themed pieces this week.  Students used a black permanent marker to draw their animal, then will color them this week.  Although most mola art is made of fabric, we are using paper and a collage technique to make ours in class.  Check out this AMAZING photograph of my students weekend art project, which she shared with her family.  

ROAR To Margo From Ms. Foy! 

ROAR to the Trowbridge's for encouraging art not only within school, but at home!

A ROAR is a way that we say thank you to students and staff for being responsible, respectful, and ready to learn every day!

**Permission was granted from parents to post this picture**

Let's Talk About Circles and Feelings!

...Happy...Silly...Goofy...Mad...Sad...
...Angry... Ecstatic...Grumpy...
              ...Surprised...Excited... Disappointed...Anxious... 
       Glad... Confused... Frustrated...


    Last week you got a peek into how I teach my younger students to begin drawing and recognizing circles.  Now, since they have begun to grasp the concept of a circle, we are learning how to turn a circle into a face!  I usually push students a bit farther with this project by reading the story Today I Feel Silly and Other Moods That Make My Day by Jamie Lee Curtis. While reading the story, I make sure to ask students to watch how my face changes while I read through the book for each emotion the character feels(disclosure: when I read this book to the students, if you were just listening, you would probably call me the crazy moody art teacher... my voice and face goes from happy to sad to mad to glad to excited.... and so on... but the students LOVE it).

After we read the wonderful story, we practice making all of our different faces. I review with students around and close for a circle but show how I can also add eyes, and a nose.   When we get to the mouth, I show students how just by changing the kind of line they use, they can
change the way their face feels!  I think these Pre-K 4's did a SUPER job!  Check out all the varying emotions and feelings shown within their art!

Around and Close....Tap, Tap!

I LOVE this shot I took because of the shadows!

A while back I posted on the terror of using liquid paint with the adorable, but young pre-schoolers or Pre-K 3's as they are now called.  

They're cute, funny, shy, and curious...

and if you give them paint.... they tend to become cute but crazed monsters covered from finger to elbow!!

So what did I decide to give them this morning?

PAINT!

We started with the story Mouse Paint by Ellen Stoll Walsch.  Students review their colors by helping me read along to this brief but exciting kids book. (which I've heard comes in SPANISH too?! WISHLIST ITEM!)

After reading the story I introduce the ever so important shape: Mr. Circle.  Explaining to students, that the way we draw Mr. Circle is by saying "Around and Close"(this is said while creating a circle with a counter clockwise motion).

Students practice in crayon drawing circles while saying those three magic words (no, not "I LOVE ART") " Around and close" until 10 minutes until the end of class.  I then distributed the paint(pictured above) and baby food jars for students to use as stamps! Look to the left to see them in action! We usually say "Tap, Tap" for stamping.  Once when we dip the jar into the paint, then when we gently stamp it onto our page!  Students did a great job stamping their circles and made some awesome abstract art today!  

Fear of Liquid Paint with 3-year olds: CONQUERED!

Flowers...? AGAIN?

I've had the same flowers and vases in my classroom for the past 3 years now, and I really couldn't stand to put my students through drawing them yet again. So this year I got creative! I've collected random clear glass jars, vases, etc. and rather than flowers, I put succulents and moss inside with pebbles under the soil for some extra details. 

Rather than forcing students to draw exactly what they see and exactly how they see it, I asked them to simply draw some things they saw however they wanted to arrange them on their page (we discussed composition within art).  We recall last year, how we learned every mark comes from lines, which create words, and lines, which create shapes.  To the right, you can see a student who really enjoys drawing realistically, and so she drew just what she saw using only a black ultra fine point marker.


Why use a black marker?  Because in art there are no mistakes.  Students come to me once per week or per 6 day cycle, and are exhausted by always being pushed to find or read the "right" answer.  I explain to students that in math and reading, yes, there is a correct answer or correct word. A-R-T always spells ART, that won't ever change, but when they're in art I want them to understand there is NO RIGHT ANSWER.  This is their release, their time to break free from the pressure of needing to be right, and by using a black pen which you cannot erase, they learn that "mistakes" or "mess-ups" are in fact art.

 Above you can see a student who has chosen to draw the vase, and does so with excellent technique!  You can also see another plant in a glass as well as one student who chose to think outside the box by drawing a flower and imagining the pebbles from the bottom of the glass swirling around and into the flower.  Now that's imagination and creativity!  If this is just the beginning of my students hard work this year, I'm already ecstatic to see how I can help them blossom and develop their skills even further!

First Days of School! First Days of School!

 As I toss and turn anticipating the first day of school with my students, I cant fall asleep! And then...

"ONCE UPON A TIME A FEW MISTAKES AGO, I WAS IN YOUR SIGHTS, 

YOU GOT ME ALONE, YOU FOUND ME, YOU FOUND ME.....

NOOOOO, NOT THE SOUND OF MY ALARM CLOCK!! 

(and yes I admit, my alarm clock is "trouble" by Taylor Swift!) 

SNOOZE BUTTON, WHERE ARE YOU?! 

"CUZ I KNEW YOU WERE TROUBLE WHEN YOU WALKED IN, 

SHAME ON ME YEAH...TROUBLE TROUBLE TROUBLE...."

OKAY OKAY FINE, I'M UP! 

So, maybe my wake-up wasnt that dramatic but the minute my feet hit the floor, the excitement settled in... I get to see my students today!  Summer may only be roughly 8 weeks, but I feel like my students change SO much in such a short time!  Every morning I greet students as they walk into the building.  This builds a relationship with all my students and their families that I truly value.  So I bet you're all wondering what happens the first week of school in art right?

  Self-Portraits!

Shifting back into art usually starts with self-portraits in my room, we discuss the  different lines we know, the different shapes, and apply them to drawing a person.  This is a great activity because it's something we go over multiple times every year, so all students are comfortable and it's nothing new or intimidating for them.  Above you can see a student drawing himself, notice his attention to detail through drawing the sharks on his shirt that he is wearing that day(last year we really worked hard on creating more unique compositions through the addition of details!)

The rest, honestly, I can't put into words so take a look at some of the rockstar self-portraits below from across grade levels!

 

NEWSFLASH! NEWSFLASH!

Blogging on Labor Day Weekend?  I know, crazy Ms. Foy, BUT I just received some exciting news on my e-mail!

The Bancroft Art Program just won $100 to Blick Art Supplies!

How? Might you ask... well it all started with the discovery of the smART Teacher website! 

This is a website which is the equivalent of a candy store for a kid but to an Art Teacher!

On this site, art teachers from across the world post all sorts of handy documents like lesson plans, bulletin board ideas, fundraising ideas, rubrics, classroom organization tips, the possibilities are endless....

So, blick art supply hosted a challenge, and every teacher who submitted two lesson plans with student work examples would be entered into a drawing for one of six $100 gift cards!!

AND WE WON ONE!

Check back for a post about what the art program gained due to this generous opportunity from The SmART Teacher and Blick Art Supply!

Summer of an Art Teacher

Summer vacation a major perk of being a teacher (or so most of society thinks) and to some extent, it is a great perk, but it's not all fun and games.

So here's a glance into the summer of this art teacher..... 

 

June 21: SCHOOL'S OUT FOR SUMMER!

 

June 22-24: This was a crazy few days of moving all my things into my new place in Virginia.  I only had about two days to move because on June 25 I was headed to......

June 25-July 1: FLORIDA! 

    Alright, so this clearly looks like fun and games, which it was, but everyone deserves a vacation right?  I went to Florida for about a week to visit my best friend who I have known since the SECOND GRADE!  She lives there now, and we spent a week at St. Pete's Beach on the west coast celebrating her birthday and just relaxing on vacation.  As you can see I also got a chance to brush up on my photography skills during our days exploring... St. Pete had so much beautiful nature and wildlife, I could hardly put my camera down! 

July 4, 2013: A True Capitol Fourth Experience

The fourth of July brought me back to DC and what better way to celebrate than going to the National Mall?  I began my fourth by celebrating with an old teacher from work who was in town to get married.  It was great to see her!  I then headed with my sister and brother-in-law to the Capitol where with some help from a great Capitol Police Officer, we got all the way up to the actual Capitol steps and balcony area to relax and watch the concert and fireworks.  It was a great concert, and the fireworks were great as usual too! 

 

 

 

 

Now, let me pause right here... I'm realizing this really does all look like fun and games, I should probably add that roughly 3-4 days per week I have been reporting to the central office to work on some after school program curriculum as well as do some coordinating for the art department.  This is a great experience for me to have some leadership and curriculum writing skills not only at a school level, but at a district wide level.  I can't lie though, when writing curriculum for after school, I usually do a fair amount of drawing and coloring the project examples! Okay, now back to the fun and games..... 

July 6-July13: Minnesota

Minnesota is the land of 10,000 lakes, and for sure, there are TONS of lakes.  I had the opportunity to travel to Minnesota with my boyfriend, Paul (many of you parents may recognize him as the Art Auction security/bartender) to see where he grew up, went to college, and meet family and friends.  We hit the ground running by going to the Mall of America, the Mall of America Aquarium, Bunker Beach (waterpark), The Minnesota Zoo, Lake Calhoun, the Sculpture Garden, and tons of restaurants and attractions in downtown Minneapolis.  It was a great trip where I got to see some amazing art, and meet some wonderful members of his family. Of course, being fair skinned, I managed not to get sunburned in Florida, but got rather sunburned in Minnesota!!  

 

July 13-August 2: Now my summer winds down, I spent alot of time working on New Teacher Orientation Presentations, helping our new art department specialist settle in, and refining the after school art enrichment curriculum.    

 

 

   

August 2-August 5:

You guessed it! PITTSBURGH!! I took Paul to experience Pittsburgh for a weekend since he had never been before.  We went to a Pirate's game, Primanti Bros, Kennywood, Mt. Washington, Station Square, South Side, and Shady Side.  You may or may not know I went to Carlow University for my undergrad degree and loved every minute so of course, I loved returning to see how campus has changed.  It was a great jam packed weekend, my only regret is that the incline was not operating so we didn't get to go up to Mt. Washington on it, we had to drive, but overall it was a wonderful fast end of summer trip.  

 

Don't worry, the fun doesn't stop there!!! 

 

August 11th: I travel to celebrate my Grandmother's 90th Birthday! 

 

August 15th: I meet the new art teachers to the district! 

 

August 19:  WEEK ZERO BEGINS! That means back to work to get ready for the year!

 

August 20:  I GET KEYS to the new place I am moving in Virginia!  

(moving during the beginning of school is no fun, but oh well)

 

August 21:  Art Teacher Day!  I get to go to the museums to learn how to be a great teacher!

 

August 26:  FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL!! I am so excited to see all my students and their families again!