Have you ever loved an art concept so much that you want to sing about it?
That happens here all the time. We love to make musical Fugleflicks that teach us about art. Here is one of our favorites:
MONOCHROMATIC just in time for our third grade monochromatic self-portrait painting.
We started painting today with a randomly selected (pulled from a hat) monochromatic palette. Each palette included:
Base color (straight from the bottle)
Tints (Base plus white)
Shades (Base plus black)
Neutrals (Base plus black plus white)
The first week of art classes is all about going through the rules, emergency procedures, classroom expectations, and such. I made a movie that explains all these things in very concrete terms with visuals, text, and voice over. I show this movie to all classes followed by an interactive quiz made in mimio studio on the interactive board to check for understanding. Here is what the quiz looks like: (but wait, there's more...)
A few years back I started adding some "commercials" to my first day that help set expectations for the classroom from day one. They are all really quick and hopefully entertaining so please take a peek below.
1. The Pencil Exchange: This video solves that problem of the disruptive use of electric pencil sharpeners during instruction. It's nice to review this in less than a minute and watch it work all year long.
2. Push up Your Sleeves: This Fugleflick video shows how to properly enter the art room. We watch for the 5 things students should do. See if you can figure it out too.
3. Our Online Digital Art Gallery: Part of being an
Artsonia school is setting up the culture for participation. I love showing this student made commercial to help excite the students about our online digital art gallery on Artsonia.
4. Digital Portfolio: At Dryden, each student has an online digital art gallery and a folder on my harddrive. This folder is a working digital portfolio. This collection of artwork, snapshots, student videos, etc is burned at the end of fifth grade and will contain their work for the tenure of their time with me. Since it is happening behind the scenes I share this video every year to remind them.
5. Don't Crush My Dreams: Showing respect to the artwork hanging in the hallways is always on my mind. But, did you know it was also on the minds of the artwork too? This had a big impact on my littlest students. They felt great sympathy for the artwork after viewing this video.
As I put my art room together for the start of the school year, I realized how much I depend on these three classroom management "posters". They were not bought from a storehouse of art supplies but rather designed by art teachers as solutions to behavior management issues. Thankfully these teachers have shared their ideas and helped make my art room run much smoother. I would like to share them here:
The Mona Lisa is an awesome example of how to be
a good listener. I first learned this idea from
Scott Russell. He also shared that he does a call and response with his students. He says "Mona" they respond with "Lisa" and pose quietly like her. This simple poster expresses my wishes for my students perfectly.
Samantha Melvin has her students look at the Mona Lisa and sit like her to calm their minds before they begin art class. I used
BlockPosters.com to make this poster a bit bigger than my school printer can. You can download the
image here and
larger poster here.
This info graphic is beautiful, artistic, and SO HELPFUL in my elementary art room. I love being able to say, "We will need to concentrate now so our voice level should not be above a 1 (spy talk)" or "Turn to your neighbor and discuss the solution. Keep your voices at a 2 (low flow)." This image came from Theresa Gillespie. She shared it out last school year and it changed the way I approach everything now. Having a concrete way to discuss my expectations with the students helps them self-monitor rather than just wait for me to tell them they are too loud. I love how it also gives me a chance to explain that noise and learning can go together if we are all on task.
Download the image from her Teachers Pay Teacher's Store here & follow Theresa on Twitter
@greeneyegal. Tip: if you need the poster a different size upload the image to
http://www.blockposters.com/
The Scoreboard is my simple incentive plan in the art room. I write 1st-5th grade classrooms on each of the lines. Every week when students arrive in art class they get 4 points. One point for each of the classroom rules (
see them on display in my room):
Listen, Be Polite, Show Respect, Clean UpAt the end of class I ask a student who was good at keeping the rules to mark the scoreboard. They work their way towards the star and gain a visual to judge how their class is doing against the rest of the school. When students reach the star I give them a smiley face eraser cap, the star of our Fugleflick movie,
Be Kind to Your Erasers.
If you want the
image only click here. If you want
the poster size version click here.
Animation made using Keynote
This is the time of year where I reflect on what worked and what I would like to do differently in my classroom. Classroom management is one of the biggest issues for any teacher, but I think even more so for Arts Educators who service the entire school population. I have over 500 students in and out of my art room all week long. Our time is limited yet I want to make it rich and meaningful. So, strategies that prevent disruptions and encourage good listening, following directions, and make clean up run smoothly are very important.
Here is a list of some of my resources:
- Push up your Sleeves- (39 second video) Students made this Fugleflick to visually demonstrate how you should enter the art room. Sometimes I run it in quicktime and set it to loop. I hold an sign in my hand that says, "Do what the video says".
- The Pencil Exchange- (40 second video) This video is like a commercial for how the pencil exchange works. It saves me from explaining it to every class at the beginning of the school year. I show it once to every group. They all completely understand how it works after this viewing and I rarely have to say a thing more all year long.
- The Scoreboard- (digital file) I use this image and run it through BlockPosters.com to enlarge it to the size of my bulletin board. This scoreboard keeps track of behavior for each class all school year long. Every group gets 4 points per class: 1 pt for Listening, 1pt for Showing Respect, 1pt for Being Polite, 1pt for clean up. We work our way to a "star" to receive a prize (Shhhh! I'll let you in on a secret. The prize is usually a smiley faced eraser cap and a lesson on being kind to your erasers).
- Clean Up Digital Organizer- (for Interactive Whiteboard) This digital file was made in mimio studio which you can download for free for PC or Macs. I use this to organize clean up when students know what "number" they are. I put a number on their seats, but you can have them pick numbers from popsicle sticks, or something similar. Watch this screen cast video to learn how I use it. Find more of my interactive mimio resources to download along with screen cast demonstrations on my Art is Interactive Wiki.
Here is one video I made a few summers back as a result of my reflections on the school year. It's called the
LISTEN PLEA. It is literally a song and dance routine that teaches the specific components of good listening (there are four-quiz students afterwards). I have used it from time to time as a refresher for my students when they stop listening to me. They seem to want to listen to my video though-go figure!?
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