My 18th first day as a teacher

Yesterday was the first day of school for the 2015-2016 school year. It was my 18th first day as a teacher. Wow. I can't believe I've been doing this, this long!

Here we are before school.

Aren't they adorable!

Kylie is going into 1st grade.

Lexi is going into 5th and is off to the Intermediate school!

 And Maddie is a 10th grader!

And here is my classroom.  I LOVE getting things organized and ready each year. 

The view from my desk.

A couple of panoramic pictures. Yes, my classroom is HUGE! 

And here is my intro into my world that I showed my students. (there is supposed to be a video below..?)

Classroom set up.

It's that time again. Classroom set up!

I love this time of the year. Everything is clean picked up and the floors are waxed.

It's the time of year where I spend time reflecting on the good and bad of the year before and try to figure out if the room set up needs to change.

This is the start of my 7th year in art. That just seems crazy to me, time is flying by. But what this means is that I'm finally making this program and room truly my own. I'm STILL cleaning out old files and records from the previous teachers, but my stamp is squarely on this art program now and I'm proud of it.

Anyway.. back to the room.  This is how I found it a couple of weeks ago. Lexi and Maddie helped me to move tables back to their homes with the use of a big wool blanket. These tables are heavy! 

I'm still working on the room, and will post pictures soon!

This is going to be a great year!

The Oil Academy

My advanced students and I have started learning how to paint with oils and a palette knife. It is soo cool and fun. I am taking classes through http://www.paletteknife.net/ and then teaching my studnets. It is going to be a great time of learning and creating!

Today we started on our first canvases learning how to hold the knife and spread the paint across the canvas.

 

 

 
 Yes, I am very aware that I have lots more room than most art teachers!

And her is my little canvas.

Tomorrow we are going to learn how to create different strokes. I got ahead of myself and kept playing after I had the first layer of paint on the canvas. Hopefully my teacher doesn't get mad and make me redo it! :)

A flock of Birds

My art 1 classes are making a flock of birds. Here is what we are doing..

Each student has to make a small, a medium and a large bird.

Soo... we will have about 350 give or take birds!!

Fun.

Over the next week or so as the birds dry we will fire and glaze.

I think they will be an interesting addition to the artshow!

Semester Exams.

One of the great things about being an art teacher is that when it is exam time, I don't have to grade papers!!

This semester, my students have to take a picture of their face, looking at the camera and draw half of it.

It's an easy and pretty fun little project.

Perfect for a final in my opinion!!

Here is my sample I created for them today :)