Art Class Dojo!

Class Dojo is working out awesome! I have been using it on my computer and iPad to take attendance, track great student behavior and give lots of reinforcement!  The site is free, easy to use and it saves all the data and gives you easy to read reports!!!  I love it!!!!    I definitely recommend it! At first I was worried that I might have to enter all 670 student names, but luckily the names can be uploaded easily or you can connect with other teachers in your school to make the input easier.  For instance, the media specialist entered the k-2 students, and I entered in the 3-5 so we can easily share students and create classes!!  And the kids LOVE IT!!  The program generates a cute little 'monster' avatar for each child, and I tell the kids they can choose their avatar after they earn 5 positive points!!! LOVE IT!!!

I survived my first week back at school!!!  My first class is just an orientation/procedures/rules/etc but so far, the classes have been awesome!!  I still have two days of orientation and then we can really get down to the art making fun!!!
Some things that have worked well:

1. The small Potatoes video!!!! The younger kids really loved it and I almost have the whole song memorized!   It really is a neat way to address our essential question, What is Art?!

2. The new transition strategy, SLANT from Teach Like a Champion is working GREAT!  Now I just need to be consistent with it and practice/reinforce it because I am sure it will save a lot a wasted instructional time.

3. The videos I made for each art lesson really were effective.  I could play the video while passing out supplies, monitoring students, etc.

How was your first week!??  Hopefully fan-tastic!

Elementary Art Critique!

As I am just now finishing up our Pacing Guide for the year with ALL the Elementary art standards from CPALMS, I couldn't help but notice the amount of art criticism that is expected from fifth grade.  I will honestly say that in the past, my art program has focused mostly on the the Art Making and Art history component of the Disciplined Based art approach, leaving the Art Criticism and Aesthetics just briefly touched upon.  I have been wanting to find a way to include more Critique into their curriculum and have found some great resources, including the Four Step Art Critic.  I found a great handout online here http://teacher.nicholas.kyschools.us/ejohnson/art_dept/Four%20Step%20Critique%20of%20a%20Work%20of%20Art%20Handout.pdf    but since my school is digital and we are trying to go paperless, I converted this form into a Google Form that my fifth graders can fill out on their laptops!  So I am really excited to try it out with them and see if they are able to use and understand it.  I am thinking we may use it in September after we have finished our Art to Remember Projects.  So here is the google form :https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dDJpbjZCbzhtOHNxa180OGZlRk9yQVE6MA

And the poster/visual

BACK TO SCHOOL IN ART!!!

AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!  School starts back for us TOMORROW!!!  Will I ever feel 'ready'?  I think probably not.....but I have kind of settled on our first art project.  This summer during the curriculum mapping with the other talented art teachers in our county, they mentioned requesting students bring notebooks to keep in art for vocabulary, sketching, etc.  I thought this was a great idea considering that EVERY student in our k-5 school will have to take the standardized Art End of Course Exam this year after Spring Break.   SO  I emailed the teachers and requested that students bring a notebook to their first day of art and I was able to get a lot of notebooks during the Tools For School event.   This notebook would also allow me to incorporate the #Marzano strategy of note taking to increase student achievement.

Then I started thinking about how to introduce these notebooks to my classes in an artistic way.  I have ALWAYS wanted to try making altered books with my classes but never really felt like I had the time....but with this notebook being an ongoing project that student's will be working on ALL year long- I thought this would be the perfect opportunity!

So here is my iMovie that I made to introduce the lesson to my students!  Let me know what you think and if you have any great ideas for using notebooks in art.  I'll let you know after this week if it was a SUCCESS- YES or a FAIL!

THANKS!!!!

How To Make a Native American Coil Pot Animoto

Just finished this video for an E-book I am working on and will be presenting at the FAEA Annual Conference in Orlando!!  I am so excited - this is my first year presenting and I hope it goes great!!!





How To Make a Native American Coil Pot

Tech Tools for the Art Room!!

This week we had a three day Digital Pilot Schools Technology Training. It was JAM packed full of awesome resources, apps and information that I can not wait to begin implementing. Two really cool iPad apps I learned about were Tellagami and ColarMix. Tellagami is for making video avatars. They only drawback is that the free version limits you to 30 seconds. The ColarMix is an augmented reality app that seems really cool. You can print coloring sheets for the students to color, then they can scan them with the app and it makes their coloring come to life!!!
I also learned a lot about Project Based learning, Kagan Strategies and Flipping your classroom.  Stay tuned for more on those topics!!!