Throw back Thursday! Published in Family Fun Magazine!

So in early September I was emailed by an editor for Family a fun magazine in regards to my post on the Dale Chihuly Macchia coffee filter lesson that I did with my students nearly 5 years ago. They wanted me to write an article for the magazine that was about the lesson. I said of course! What I found most interesting was that they were going to re-create my lesson example in their in house studio and shoot the photos of the project themselves. (Even better less work for me!) The article turned out gorgeous, ran in the December/ January issue, and now I am officially published! Also I learned that Family Fun is a subscription only magazine when I went to "buy 10 copies for my mom!" Fortunately the magazine was kind enough to send me some extra copies! Yay! Enjoy! 

Full page

Close up! 

Mexican Yarn Paintings

After completing circle weavings with third grade and loom weavings with fourth grade, I was left with all kinds of scraps of yarn. I remembered a friend of mine showing me her students yarn paintings that she did with kindergarten that were so cute! So I did some online research, came up with an introduction to the lesson, and taught this activity with all grades. All the students enjoyed doing this and they came with some really creative results. Check out more on our Artsonia page!

Check out this link for more information on this lesson plan!
http://www.dickblick.com/multicultural/huichol/ 

Tessellations: Art and Math Teachers coming together

Last week was exploration week for the theme based around the Adventure Science Museum trip. Leslie Franklin the math teacher and I collaborated to teach the students about pattern and tessellations.

First we watched a video on how to create tessellations from crystal. This video was really well done and broke it down really well for the students.

Some of the students did a really great job with this assignment. Others didn't do so great. This is a difficult lesson to do with students with special needs, but you sometimes don't know what they are capable of until they try.

From African Masks to Picasso Collages...

The week after the students completed their African masks we switched gears and looked at Picasso's portraits. We talked about geometric shapes and viewing a face from more than one view. The students practiced drawing like Picasso in their sketchbooks, then created a collage and drew their Picasso faces on top of the collages. The results were mixed like anything other projects that we do here at KDS, but several turned out pretty decent! Check out the final results on our Artsonia account! (Link @ the top of the page!)

Sketchbook work

Teacher Sample and Picasso Artwork

CD Cover Design Contest

The students of KDS have entered a CD cover design contest that is being offered by a singer song writer in the Nashville area. Tammy Vice is a Christian singer/ song writer who has a daughter with Autism so she has restricted the cover contest to those with students with Special Needs. This gave my students and I the opportunity to understand the process in which professional graphic designers and other artists explore when they are given an assignment by a client. We listened to the song that Tammy recorded and talked about what types of images came into their heads while the students listend to it, what type of feeling it gave them, and we spoke about symbolism in the words of the song. Many classes thought that a door was a great image to work with that Tammy sang about because they felt it was very symbolic.

Tammy has since called to inform me that she will be using a collage of the artwork done by the students here at KDS for the cover! We are all very excited. Below are some of the images that my students created.

Go to http://www.tammyvice.com/ to see the contest details and some of the entries submitted. Click on photos to see some of the students artworks.

Houses for Haiti

To continue with our "Art with a Purpose" new years resolution, the students at KDS have constructed our very own little Houses for Haiti. The houses are made from recycled cardboard, tempra paint, buttons, glitter glue, foam hearts, and sequins- topped off with Mod Podge. The lesson tied art with current events and the students continuing learning about what it means to do good things for others. Below are some examples of my students' work.




Our little houses are for sale in the art room at KDS for $5 a piece. All money will be donated to the American Red Cross.

The lesson can be found at: http://www.haitihouses.org/

More Mona's...

Since Artsonia won't post these I am... Note I do have releases in student files here at school that give permission to the school to take photos of the students. It's all good! Artsonia will not however publish these because they do contain images of students under the age of 18. I don't blame them.