School Starts Tomorrow

 School starts tomorrow, and my art room is ready.  This will be a busy school year because I will be teaching art full time as well as working on my thesis for my master's degree.  I will try to keep this blog updated as much as possible through this crazy busy school year.

In my school, I teach 6 classes a day for 35 minutes each.  I see a total of 30 different classes each week.  Keeping track of all my students is probably the biggest challenge of my job. Organization is the key to survival in my classroom.

 I did about four bulletin boards in our hallway this school year, and here is a picture of two of them.

In order to maintain order in my classroom, I utilize a voice level chart, and students earn "Art Dollars" for good behavior.  Four times a year students get to spend their art money on prizes.

Summer at Boston University

I have been working on a Master's degree through Boston University.  Most of the classes are online. However, this summer, I went to Boston to take a few studio courses.   I took two classes: Wire Sculpture and Printmaking.  All of these techniques were wonderful to learn, however in order to apply them to my elementary classroom, I will need to simplify the techniques and materials.

 This is the wire sculpture I created during my time at Boston. This was a very time consuming process because it involved twisting and bending thick sharp wire.  If I were to do this with my elementary students, I would need to use softer wire.

 We created a variety of monoprints during my time in Boston.  This monoprint was created with water-soluble crayons on plexiglass, which was then printed on wet paper. This process can also be done with oil paints or watercolors.  While I don't have a press in my elementary classroom, I would be able to do a version of this by simply rubbing with a spoon.

 This was a woodcut I created.  The colors were added by printing several times using stencils to block out the parts I didn't want inked.  While woodcutting would be inappropriate for my elementary classroom, a similar process could be done with styrofoam or E-Z cut.

This last one was a pronto print.  It was created by printing a photo on pronto paper using a laser jet printer.  Then I used a brayer, and added ink directly to the pronto paper. Next, I used a wet sponge and wiped the pronto paper.  It was printed using a press.  I am not sure if this is doable for my elementary students.  I will have to see if this process works without a press first.