Harry Potter and the After School Art Club

We are in our third week of after school art club.  It's been a lot of fun and every day I have one or two students ask me if it is too late to join.  It's not and I make sure to get them a permission slip that I conveniently put on the table by the front door of my classroom.

Art Club is a little more relaxed than regular class.  We do a lot of projects that we just can't do during school because of time, supplies and materials.  For our first project, we have been making "Harry Potter Wands" mostly because I wanted to make one myself.  

I bought a bunch of chopsticks and a ton of glue sticks, showed them a couple of YouTube videos and let them loose.  I've had a container full of beads and sequins and other assorted baubles since I've been at AMS and I let them sort through it to find things to add dimension and interest. 

Don't tell anyone but I think there may be a few Bulldog moms, dads, sisters and brothers that might find some magic under their Christmas trees.

Happenings...

Holy Hand-grenades, Batman!  The last few weeks in the art room have been a flurry of activity!  Seriously, I need a break.  Good thing Thanksgiving is coming up fast. It's all been great and fun but we have been so busy!

Chromebooks

I am very fortunate to work in a district that has implemented a 1:1 chromebook initiative with all the high and middle schools.  High Schools got theirs last year and thankfully, worked out some of the bugs and we got ours mid-first quarter.  At first, I was a little bit hesitant wondering what in the world I would be able to do with them in the art room, but they have turned out to be a great asset. 

I started out by creating Google Classrooms for each grade level and had the students sign in, using a specific code for their class.  Using Google drive, I can send out messages, assignments, photographs of examples, slide shows and any number of resources that students can refer to at any time.  The kids are so much more tech savvy than I, which is saying a lot because I really consider myself pretty darn good with technology and they have totally embraced using the chromebooks in not just my class, but most of their other classes as well. 

Working on the Art Scavenger Hunt in Google Classrooms

Neil found the information about American Gothic fascinating.

Google Classrooms and a chromebook in every student's hands makes leaving sub plans a breeze!

Art Club

 

The art club recently completed their first project. We meet every Monday afternoon for about an hour and work on some kind of project that I generally can't do on a large scale.  I had some old vinyl records donated last year and was hoping to get enough to do this project with a whole grade level but only got about 30 so I decided that it would be an art club project.  We took a couple of weeks and drew on the records using plain old crayola colored pencils.  

We drew lines and patterns and just colored them in until one side of the record was completely covered.

We took them down to what was, at one time, the old careers classroom that has a small 'efficiency' kitchen in it and boiled water in a shallow skillet.  I have to tell you that I was worried sick that 1. It wouldn't work 2. The designs that they drew on the records would wash or melt off 3. Somebody (me) would get scalded with hot water. 

Much to my surprise, IT WORKED!  We were all thrilled to pieces with our record bowls and took home our first (successful) project.  Trust me, MizzSmiff breathed a sigh of relief.

I created an Art Club classroom in Google Classrooms and sent them all a message to let them know that we wouldn't be meeting this Monday.  We only have 2 days this week before Thanksgiving and many of us will be out of town and busy with preparations for the holiday.  I took the opportunity to let them know that our next project will be a canvas painting.  They are so excited and want to know what it will be.  The truth is, I really haven't decided yet, but I have an idea.

The art club and their record bowls

 Field Trip

The 'Arts Department' at AMS (that would be me and the band teacher, ha) took the 8th grade art, chorus and band students on a field trip about a week ago.  

We filled a bus with our students and headed to the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.  G'boro is a little over an hour's drive from AMS in a car and we were expecting it to take much longer by old yellow school bus, but thanks to Ms. Watkins, we were there in record time. 

I know you aren't supposed to take pictures in museums but I couldn't help myself.  This was part of the 'Art on Paper' Exhibition.  I wish I would have written down the artist who did this piece.  I love it!  It was done by tracing shadows of iron gates, then cutting them out.

We saw an Opera, toured the school of music and the art students visited the Weatherspoon Museum of Art while the band students sat in on a practice session.  I have never been to the Weatherspoon before and was pleasantly surprised by their collection.  I was thrilled that the kids got to see art, in person, in a real museum.  They asked the docents a lot of smart questions and I think that they enjoyed themselves. By the end of the tour, they were tired and asking what we were doing next and when we were going home.  It was a long day with a lot of walking.

That all being said, I hate to admit that I think the highlight of the trip was having lunch in a real college cafeteria.  Can I just say that college cafeterias have been stepped up their game since I was in school back when the crust of the earth was cooling?  I'm not kidding.  It was overwhelming.  It was huge.  The kids didn't know where to start and what to do. We heard a lot of 'Can we have anything we want?' and 'We can go back for seconds?'.  There was a lot of wandering with plates out and eyes glazed over.  Apparently, the tater tots were amazing, mashed potatoes with a side of bacon bits make for the best lunch ever and cookies can be stuffed into back packs and the pockets of cargo pants for the long ride home.   

We also hit the bookstore up right before we headed back to the bus, I got wrangled out of 20 bucks for Starbucks for I don't know how many kids (did I really do that?) and we got back to school about an hour and a half later than we expected.  I really hope that we put a spark in their minds about what a large college campus looks like and what they can expect in just a few short years when they head off to college.

Teacher Artists

 

The next few pictures are of a 'Painting Party' we had in my classroom last Saturday.  This idea all started at the end of the last school year.  Usually, a bunch of us like to do something fun to commemorate the end of the year and thought that it would be fun to do one of those 'Wine and Design' or 'Paint and Pour' activities.  There was a Groupon out and as much as we tried, we just couldn't find a date that would work for most of us. Jennifer Walker, 6th grade science, assured me that I could teach a group of teacher to paint SOMETHING, but I really just wanted to go to an event to see how it was done before I tried to do it myself.  Fast forward to early October.  I'm not sure how it started, but someone, I think it was Heather, found a cute snowman painting on Pinterest and I exclaimed "OMG!  We can do that!  I promise!"  It started with about 5 of us. I ordered 5 canvases from Blick.  Then we said, We have to invite so and so.  And She needs to come! And I ordered 5 more canvases.  And we haven't seen Her in so long!  So, 10 more canvases. And it turned into a THING.  And I said "Eh, fuggedabout it." and ordered 10 more.  I realized quickly that no one had enough room in their house for 25 women, canvases and paint so I emailed my principal and said "Ummmm, Beverly, there are a few (a lot) of us that want to get together and paint a holiday painting on a Saturday and I was wondering if maybe we could use my art room and if maybe you could turn the alarm off so we could use the bathroom and stuff and you can come and paint with us too if you want."  

We had a blast.  And we didn't even have any wine with our design or pour with our paint.  AMS teachers, former teachers, former students, moms and friends came.  We are already thinking about what we are going to do the next time. 

I say this a lot and I know that I am not the only one on my staff that feels this way, but we are so lucky to work with people that we call friends.  We all know that teaching is a hard job and above all, we need to support each other.  Hanging out and just having fun with each other is so important.  

Staci and her masterpiece, pre snowflakes.

Heather,  working diligently.

Maureen.  Notice she put her flakes along the side of her canvas!

Kat adding her snowflakes.

Nancy, Jennifer, Chaundra and Brooke with their finished projects!

End of the First Semester, More Pics and Art Club

I am writing this in my jammies, it's MLK day, I have off and am looking at a 1 1/2 day work week.  It's the end of the Second Quarter, the end of the first semester and all I can say is where has the time gone?  It's almost February, traditionally the longest month in teacherdom, despite being the shortest calendar month.  But after that? March, then Spring.  And I breathe a sigh of relief.

These pics are one of my seventh grade classes working on positive and negative space.  I wasn't thrilled with the way that my first quarter kids tackled the project that I gave them for this concept.  It was all black and white and they didn't seem to put much effort into it so I decided to change it up a bit.

They traced their hands on 12 x 18 paper and added line and pattern in the back ground.

I told them they could color with markers or colored pencils or both.

Oooops.  I told Jillian that I wouldn't show her face but she is so cute how could I not?

Greyson made sure that I wouldn't post her face. 

This next bunch of pictures is from Art Club.  We meet once a week for about and hour, hour and a half or so.  It's very fluid.  I have a core of about 10 kids that come every week and about 5 or 6 more that come a little less frequently.

I have about 50 panels of lauan that the previous art teacher had cut to fit in the ceiling to put in place of the ceiling tiles.

Turns out that I can't use the wood in place of the ceiling tiles as it is against fire code.  Turns out that the ceiling tiles were painted and put up need to come down as well as the paint isn't fire retardant.  They've been up in our school for 10 years so I don't know if someone is going to take them down or not.

Chizong working on softball, while Madison and Keturah look up pictures for volleyball on the computer.

These panels have been taking up space in my closet and I am on a mission to clean it out.  The Art Club is painting quadriptych murals of the sports that we participate in at our school. 

Nicholas working on Football

Dream is doing an amazing picture of a girl playing basketball, while Angel and Caitlyn work on getting the angle of the elbow dribbling correct. 

Caitlyn and Angel

Love these girls.

 

While the kids were working I watched them, taking pictures and I just couldn't stop smiling.  They were all so independent, getting their paint and materials out without having to ask.  My art room was their art room. It was their space.  If they needed help, they asked me but they pretty much did their own thing.  I couldn't help but feel like the luckiest art teacher on the planet.  

Earlier in the year, not long after my first art club meeting I got very emotional.  I haven't had an art club in years and I had so many kids show up for that first meeting.  I think my last art club was probably 2007 or so. I couldn't help but think about all the kids that would have loved to have come to Art Club after school in those years that I didn't have it. There hasn't been a lot of support for it.  Luckily, our new administration was totally on board this year and is very appreciative of the activities that we offer after school for our students.  Our band teacher stays after school for tutoring, pep band, jazz band and bucket drums throughout the year.  Our CTE teacher has FBLA meetings and has already taken her group to the State Fair.  We have an amazing step/dance team that is facilitated by one of our EC teachers.

I teach in a small town that doesn't have an awful lot for our kids to do after they leave school in the afternoon.  If you aren't involved in a sport there isn't much to do at school when the day is done.  I am so glad to be able to spend time with kids who love art, some that won't ever have my class because they are in band, or just have art one quarter of the year.  In a couple of months, we will be going to the Artalympics to compete in art events.  I jokingly tell them that we better win a trophy (the big one) and while that would be nice, I am looking forward to spending a special day with them.

After we finish our mural, we will install it on the long wall outside the gym.  It's their legacy, I tell them.  Our next project will be doing a mural on the dugouts.  When it is warmer.  Another legacy. 

I'd love to hear what other art teachers out there do with their art clubs.  Do you charge a fee?  Do you just use supplies that you have?   What kind of projects do you do?