Welcome!

The art room is ready to welcome students in. 

A few new things.

With the new year comes some new elements of teaching I am going to try. They are small but I hope will help with my students learning.

First one is a simple management issue I have had in the past and it falls along the same lines as my bathroom pass.

How it works is, it is a sort of flag to me that the student is out of the room. Instead of waiting to ask, the student can simple grab the bottle, put it at their spot and go do what the bottle says. Upon returning from doing what they needed. The bottle goes back to its home. Simple but I like it. It helps the students take ownership of the room. The night of the open house one student did notice this out and even said "oh it is like the bathroom pass..neat!"

Second thing is a big bigger. I noticed last year that vocab was something my students didn't recall much. I would ask a few students in line before they left key questions about the day but I didn't feel everyone was engaged. So this came about. 

This is inspired by a similar idea I saw for math problems. Students would have a math problem by the door and upon leaving would slap the stop sign with the answer. Similar idea for the art word, the definition or description of a word would be in the grade section and they would high five the sign upon leaving for the day. 

Lastly, art supplies icons. 

I teach in a visual area, and last year I played with the idea of drawing little icons of what the students needed for the day next to the steps. So to save time, hopefully, I came up with this. It will have the supplies for the day on it, through the help of magnets and the name of the supply on it. 

Also helping with vocabulary. 

Here goes nothing. 

Open House

Open house was last night and it was a huge success. Normally I get maybe 3-6 drop pop-ins but this night. Oh boy. Made at least over 100 buttons! Got a lot of first time visits from parents and great to see the students back and ready for action. Also was a wonderful way to welcome new students that shall be starting this year. A must repeat.

Let the fun begin!

First day of school is next week and tomorrow is the open house. Let the games begin!