MizzSmiff's Art Room: 2012

Sunday, December 9, 2012

I know, I just did number 13.

I've been very, very bad about posting. I've been dealing with discipline, mentoring our new, wonderful band teacher and helping her get ready for the Christmas Parade, making bucket drums, designing logos for the marching band and our new step team (The Stunnaz!) so they can have sweatshirts and t shirts and most recently, putting together the Christmas Program so that our tradition can continue on the Early Release day before Winter Break. Not to mention that we have Enrichment Night (a showcase of what we all have been doing in the Exploratory Classes this semester). I really just want to come home and pull the covers over my head.

I've also been disinfecting my classroom after nearly every class. We have been luckier than some schools in my county, but we have had our share of sickies. Oh, how I wish parents would keep their children home when they are sick. It is exhausting trying to stay well. Thank goodness I have sinks with hot water and soap in my classroom. I think that I have convinced all my darlings that it is in their best interest to wash their hands as much as possible.

I promise that I will be better about posting in the New Year. In the meantime, I'd like to share this little tidbit from School Arts Magazine about how to earn an 'F' in my class. It pretty much sums up my feelings about how to earn an 'A' (or not) in my class. I tell them it's more about their attitude and effort but they just don't believe me.

How to earn an 'F' in my class:

Be afraid of new things
Be late to class
Blame it on a lack of talent
Do as little as you can
Don't ask questions (or don't pay attention to my answers or keep asking the same question over and over and over and over again)
Don't even try
Have someone else do your work (I know when you do that, you know)
Ignore instructions
Ignore people that know more than you (that includes me and your classmates)
Imagine that you will get better with out practice
Keep ideas to yourself
Let other students tell you what is good
Make excuses (this is a big one with me)
Make no mistakes
Miss class and don't make up the work
Never fail
Perfect it all
Sit perfectly still and never make a sound
Spend as much time as your can talking with friends (while not working)
Stick to what you are good at
Not on the School Arts list, but I would like to add: Be destructive and wasteful

http://www.schoolartsdigital.com/schoolarts/201110#pg15

I hope that you all have a restful, much deserved Winter Break and a Happy Holiday season.

Thursday, October 18, 2012

Is it Friday yet?

It's been a long and very busy week. Just one thing to add: I know it's a good project when they ask me when they get to take their artwork home.

We are working on pastel still life drawings. I'll post pictures soon!

Saturday, October 6, 2012

Melted Glass, Dale Chihuly and blobs o'plastic

We have been working on a 'Dale Chihuly' project this week. I saw a lesson on Pinterest. ~~~Oh, Pinterest, how in the world did I ever teach anything before I started pinning? I'll have to teach until I am 70 before I run out of ideas and lets face it, that's not gonna happen.~~~
The original lesson was from Arts for Life and I thought 'Cool!' and gave it a shot. I'm not sure what I did wrong, but my circles did not turn out quite so, uhm, circular. Not being one to give up easily (and after finding this on MaryMaking's blog) I thought to myself 'Chihuly!'.

We watched a couple of videos about Dale Chihuly that I found on youtube to start the lesson. The kids were fascinated with the glass blowing process. After some research, we've been experimenting with different types of plastic and have found that #1 and #6 plastic seems to work the best. We've been using the Chinet Cut Crystal 6 oz. cups (#6 plastic) and the Wal-Mart Brand 6 oz cups (#1 plastic). We also found some old, discarded nacho trays that melt very, uhm, interestingly.

The Chinet Cups sort of curl up into a ball and end up looking like sea shells.

Or, you can smoosh them with a spatula:

The #1 plastic cups melt on to themselves and you have to smoosh them flat.

So now, I have a whole box of sparkly bobs of plastic and smooshy roundish plastic and we haven't gotten close to melting all of them. I think that we are going to make mobiles to hang in the windows at the end of every hallway above the outside doors with the flat ones and create some kind of collaborative sculpture with the blobby ones.

My young darlings are horribly disappointed that they won't be able to take home their plastic blobs, even though I have tried to encourage them by reminding them that they will be leaving a legacy at AMS. They laughed when I told them that when they are old and gray, they can come visit their grandchildren at school and say "When I was your age, I helped make that sculpture with MizzSmiff. Gee, I wonder what happened to her?"

And so, because I am a sucker, I bought some #6 6 /14" chinet plates and we are gonna see what happens...Christmas ornaments, perhaps?

I'll post pictures of our mobiles, our sculpture and our plate experiment when we are done!

Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Art Teacher Blog Directory

Do you want to join an art teacher blog directory? Add your link and then copy and paste the whole thing to your blog. Pretty soon you will be linked up with art teachers from all over the world.

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