New posters!

Being the art room, there are always posters around. I counted up one time how many I have made and it was well over 10. Two of these ones I created to help with some goals in my room. 

This one is an interesting one. I created it due to my school being an inquiry focused like enviroment for the students. A lot of the classrooms have these wonder spots and opportunities to research what they wonder about. So I created this. As you can see it has my k-5th and I created little pockets using extra lamination film. This picture is just from the first week. My 2nd and 1st really took to it. Which makes sense due to them being more familiar with the inquiry process. 

These two are pretty straight forward on what they do and why they were made. 

This one has to do with my PPG (professional planning goal) I decided to focus on rubrics and having my students understand more of the grading process in art. So I debated and research for awhile on a visual way to show the grading scale. Finally, I decided on this. It has been up for about a month now. I have not introduced it. Just had it up one day and students are referencing it. And they are beginning to understand what a 4 really means. 

Handy Tips

So I know my watercolor paints go quick. My students love to use them and there can be colors that don't get used as much. What I started doing is this.

Depending on the brand, I either remove the color or cut it out of the rest and put in this box. The students have gotten a good hang of looking through it for some colors they might need. Or some even just go right to this just for a small amount they just want. Pretty handy.

Another clean up trick I use is this. 

NOT super fancy but effective. I started this last year with 2nd grade because they kept leaving behind paint. It is good to talk to the students about how to spread out the paper and when to recycle it. (We recycle as much as we can!) Trick is having a nice supply of newspaper. I normally just do a call out at the beginning of the year for some and BAM! newspaper. 

Updated Art Word

After having the art word up for since the beginning of the year. I noticed a few things. 

1. Students hitting it to hit it, and hard too. 

2. Students not saying the word.

3. Students not saying THE RIGHT WORD.

4. Teachers not helping/ have no idea. 

5. Short students needing to jump. 

SO..I updated the sign for where the students interact and I started saying the definition before they leave. 

                                                      

         Before and after

As you can see, changes. Stop sign part lowered for my more vertical challenged students. Wording changed. NOW student pet the sign and have to say it out loud. I know having them say it out loud just can have the one behind them repeat but they are still using the word! Again they can skip out if they don't know it. Last change not seen is I put a folded piece of felt behind the sign to soften the blow. 

So for the teachers not helping, I have tried talking to the students about it as they are waiting to leave, so the teachers get the hint to ask them. Two of my 10 classes the do this (kindergarten has not been introduced yet, just getting them use to regular route is first step) actually ask the students what the word is, and step in to look to see it too. 

See how this works out now. 

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.