In the Art Room

Blame it on the snow.

Snow recently struck our neck of the “woods,” and like any other “sane” school district/county south of the Mason Dixon line, we had a 2 hour early release last week due to the potential 1-3″ of accumulation. As any teacher (art or otherwise) can attest to, once the word gets out that WE’RE GOING HOME EARLY!, the day is pretty much shot in regards to getting anything productive accomplished. Couple that with the fact that it’s a week before Winter break, and, well, maybe you can understand why I trashed my plans that day and allowed the students to play art games and take part in other free choice art activities. I only feel slightly hypocritical.

And follow that 2 hour early release day with a 2 hour delay day, and, well, not much was accomplished that day either. I mean, how can you start anything new when you have only 12 out of 20 students show up, it’s the last art class before break, and the students are cracked out on snow? Which is why I let my 3rd graders make *gasp* holiday cards. And now I feel completely hypocritical.

Happy countdown to break. What are your plans for the final few days?

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In the Art Room

The Art Teacher Christmas List

It’s that time of year again. Time to get your neighborhood art teacher a thank-you-for-all-your-hard-work-we-really-appreciate-everything-you-do-for-our-students-so-have-a-happy-holiday-whatever-your-celebratory-persuasion-may-be gift. If you’re stumped for some ideas, don’t worry, I’ve compiled a great list of gift ideas right here for you.

Drawing Books

Drawing books are a great classroom addition. Especially for those times when the class over-achiever or the class speed-demon finishes their project early and needs something to do for the last 20 minutes of class. They’re also great for when kids insist on learning how to actually draw things (the nerve!), and you just don’t have the time nor the patience to sit there and demonstrate how to draw a blue whale while still maintaining complete control over the classroom.

Alternative Idea: If you’re hard up on cash this year, consider donating some of your child’s old coloring books, but make sure some of the pages are still color-able. Some students really enjoy coloring when they have free time, and I know it’s often difficult for art teachers to find decent coloring sheets for their students (and really, who has time to photocopy coloring sheets?).

Tissues and Wet Wipes

It probably wouldn’t occur to you to send a box of tissues to the art room. Classroom teachers usually have boxes of tissues donated to their classrooms every year. Art teachers don’t, and we have 20x as many students as the classroom teachers. That’s a lot of noses that need to be wiped. 

Wet wipes are a great alternative to sending students to the sinks to wash their hands. They’re also very useful and surprisingly effective at cleaning the tables. Once students have cleaned their hands, they can then use the used wipes to clean the tables, which avoids the sopping wet sponge chaos (and, personally, I think sponges are nasty).

Rubber Gloves

A fellow co-worker gave me a pair of rubber gloves at the start of the school year, and now I have no idea how I ever washed paintbrushes without them. One of my favorite features of the gloves are the textured palms and fingers. The texture works wonders for scrubbing brushes clean. And a bonus, no dishpan hands!

Alternative Idea: I have another co-worker who uses boxes of latex gloves in her classroom. She uses them when working with clay to keep her hands from getting to damaged by the constant exposure to moisture.

Heavy-Duty Hand Lotion

Now, I’m not talking about some pansy, fruity-smelling hand lotion here. I’m talking the real hard hitting, deep moisturizing lotion that can work it’s way into all those cracks and creases and magically erase the desert-like texture that takes over art teachers’ hands this time of year. I love Creamy Vaseline after spying it in the medicine cabinet while visiting family over Thanksgiving break. Of course, Vaseline has other great products as well.

  
Time

I don’t know any art teacher who would turn down the gift of time. Of course, schedules being what they are, it’s nearly impossible to scrounge up some free time. But, wouldn’t it be nice to offer to cut some paper, or make some photo copies, or wash some paint brushes? Oh, I think it would be!

What’s on your wish list this year?

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In the Art Room

Art Teacher Blog Directory

Do you want to join an art teacher blog directory?  Add your link and then copy and paste the whole thing to your blog.  Pretty soon you will be linked up with art teachers from all over the world.

(Submissions close in 291d 22h 43m)
Link tool by inlinkz.com

Brought to us by Vivid Layers

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A Day In the Life

Super Art Teacher

We all want to be the perfect art teacher, right? Everyone’s favorite teacher. The one who has cool stories to tell, the one with all sorts of art knowledge, and the one who teaches every student everything they ever wanted to know about art. We want to connect with every student, invoke…

What? A drink? No, you can’t go get a drink. If I send you I’ll have to send everyone. Now please listen, it’s Ms. Art Teacher’s time to talk.

Where was I? Oh right, the perfect art teacher. We dream of being the teacher who instills curiosity in our students’ minds. Encourages them to experiment and explore and investigate. We want our students to…

Can you please sit still? What do you need? Do you think now is an appropriate time to use the bathroom? Probably not, huh? You can go when I ‘m finished talking.

Um, right, so, we want our students to be amazed with our demonstrations, enthralled by the knowledge we’re sharing with them, um… where was I headed with this again? Right, we want to show them all the sneaky “art tricks”, the cool “artists’ techniques”, the…

Where are you going? We’re not even using our pencils today, why do you need to sharpen it? Please return to your seat, put the pencil back in the pencil bin, and pay attention.

So, um… art tricks… techniques… right, provider of all art related knowledge. I, we, want to explain to students all the magical things that happen with clay when it’s fired, the neat chemistry behind glazes, how to slip and score, “pinch” and coil. We want them to be excited, to think that this is the BEST ART DAY EVER, every day. We want them to wake up every Thursday, or Day 3, or Monday, and think, ” I can’t wait to go to school because I have art today and I love art!” We want them… we want…

Yes, we’ll get started soon, but I actually have to talk to you and explain what it is we’re doing before you can start, so, please, for the third time, listen and pay attention or else you’re not going to know what to do.

Yes, so, we want to mold the minds of the artistically inclined, pique their interest in everything artistic and creative. Encourage their free thinking. Let them…

Can you please stop calling out Ms. Art Teacher’s name? Please? If you need my help, just raise your hand, and I’ll be there after I help the 23 other students who need my help because they don’t know what to do because they didn’t pay attention to the directions. Yes, other student tugging on my sweater, I know you know what to do because you paid attention, because you always pay attention. No, while I appreciate your eagerness to help, please just go back to doing your own work.

We want them to be excited, to think that this is the BEST ART DAY… wait, I already said that, didn’t I? Now I lost my train of thought. What I mean is, we want to be the smartest, rockin’est teacher ever. We want our students to leave our class feeling more alive and more informed than they did when they walked in. We want…

Oh, geez! Look at the time. It’s time to go. We’ll just have to finish this up next time, won’t we? No, no, that’s all for today, we’ll continue this next week. No, now is not the time to use the bathroom either.  Just clean up your stuff and be on your way.

*Sigh*

Ms. Art Teacher could use a drink.

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A Day In the Life

This Ain’t No Santa’s Workshop

As an art educator, I am not in the habit of taking time around any holiday to allow my students to make presents for family members during class time. I have a curriculum to teach. Even during the December Holidays. I know, shocking, right? I actually try to teach my students things during the month of December instead of busting out the glitter and Popsicle sticks and allowing them to make cheesy gifts. In aggravates me to no end when classroom teachers expect me to be the gift-making shop around the holidays. In my opinion, it’s not my job. Take time from your instructional time and do it in your classroom, don’t expect me to do it in mine.

That being said, your previous art teacher set the precedent of coordinating her clay lessons to be ready to go home before Winter Break so students can give them as gifts, it might be a good idea to tell the new, part-time art teacher in your school. Don’t, for example, show up for class during the first week of December and ask if your 1st graders will have their clay pot finished in time for break. Chances are your art teacher will respond with a blank stare as she tries to control her internal frustration and slight panic as she quickly calculates how many art classes are left before break.

It would probably be in your best interest, as a classroom teacher, to inform the new art teacher of any project expectations with plenty of notice. That way, the poor art teacher can adequately plan for making the pots, allowing time for them to dry, fire the pots, have the students glaze the pots and then fire the pots once more, all in time for your precious gift giving tradition.

[Deep breath]

And furthermore, if you happen to be one of those art teachers who has set this sort of precedent, it wouldn’t kill you to fill in the new art teacher on any project expectations, such as clay gifts, that you have set up. Unless you want to be responsible for breaking the little hearts of the two groups of first graders who won’t be bringing gifts home to their families because their new art teacher didn’t know that she was expected to do this.

*Sigh*

It’s been a long week, folks, a long week.

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