Back in Action!

I've been MIA on the blog since February (sorry 'bout that). I instagram daily by the same name-- follow me on the sidebar of my blog or search TheArtsyFartsyArtRoom on Instagram.

I wanted to kick the new school year off on the blog with a look into my room and some new things I am trying this year as well as a re-vamp of some others!

Welcome to the Art Room at Yahara Elementary (K-4) in DeForest, Wisconsin!

I am so grateful to have such an incredible space for my students. A spot to gather, two large sinks, technology, plenty of space to work, and storage! 

 

I am even lucky enough to have my own little nook where students are restricted from. I also got rid of my big clunky desk (that I never sat at) to open up more space for early finishers and to add a book rack for the kids.

This is will be my third year in the district and I am always inspired by other art educators to try new things with my students. So here is a look into some of the new and revamped old things happening in my room this year.

Traveling Classroom Sketchbooks

This idea came to me from a classroom teacher in my building. Her daughter attends elementary school in the McFarland School District with art teacher Bonnie Tuttle. Thank you Bonnie for this awesome idea!

When it was her daughter's turn with the sketchbook she was so excited that she brought it to school and showed it to me. I knew I had to do it! I took some quick pictures of the sketchbook and worked from there to put together my own system for our school.

Below is what is attached to the inside front covers for families and each time a student takes it home I put a label with their name on their pages they can use and the date it needs to come back to school.

I started these with 1st-4th the second time they came to art this year. I tried choosing responsible students from each class to take it home but I have had two students already forget it. Hopefully there is enough days of art and it won't happen very often and everyone will get a turn. I am contemplating sending out a parent e-mail so they can be more aware of it when it comes home with their student.

I made it a point to communicate with classroom teachers that I was doing this so they can encourage the responsibility of it and let me know of students that may have an issue with getting it back to school. I also communicated with students that it doesn't have to be done at home either, they could do it with after school care, another teacher, or our principal.

I save about 3 minutes after clean up for the artist to sit on my teacher stool and share what they did in the sketchbook. They they are not talking much, I prompt them with questions about materials and inspiration sources.

Mindfulness

Our district and the surrounding Madison area are doing a lot of work with mindfulness in the schools. UW Madison in particular does a lot of research on Mindfulness and it is trickling into the  entire public school system in the area. Training for staff and working in the classroom with students is on the rise and it is pretty incredible.

Last year I dabbled in mindfulness with a bell at the start of class and a deep breath followed by us reading together...

"Artists are kind with our bodies, Artists are kind with our words, Artists are kind with our minds, Artists are kind with our hands"

I saw a poster similar to the one I created a above and started to rethink our start of class. I still ring the bell but now just ask students to listen to me read the poster and do the deep slow breath.

We also have this bizarre extra time built into our schedules every day called Plus Time where every grade gets two extra specials during our 12 day rotation BUT we can't do curriculum with them during that time.

At a mindfulness training I took over the summer I got my hands on this incredible book and it inspired an awesome idea. During that plus time with 1st-4th I have them participate in mindful visualizations and drawings. I find some sort of youtube visual that goes with the visualization I am reading for those kiddos that can't just lay there and need something a little more to focus on.  It is going off incredible and I can't wait to share the art coming out of it on a later post. For the time being, I do not do it with Kindergarten but probably will start to mid-year.

I purchased the first book from this series, there are two more that my other elementary art team members purchased. You can find them all on amazon.

Look What We Learned Board

I started a "Look What We Learned" board outside of the art room. I believe this idea came from the ever incredible Cassie Stephens. The way I presented this to my students was a place to share their "Aha!" moments and things they were really proud of in the art room. I think as long as I am reminding and encouraging students they can add to it, I think it will get used on a regular basis. Two weeks in, and there is already a handful up on the board (this was taken before school started).

I keep a stack of post-its on a small table inside my classroom and they can add to it after showing me what they wrote during any work time. 

Hello!

"Hello my wonderful artists!"

"Hello my wonderful art teacher!"

"How are you today?"

"Ready to create!"

Sound familiar? This new greeting I do with my students when they come into the room and get seated on the carpet-- I can also thank Cassie Stephens for. The kids match my voice and it lets them say something and be loud before we settle in with the mindfulness bell. It has been working AWESOME. 

Stay tuned for more inside my art room and be sure to follow on instagram for daily updates!

Welcome to my New Classroom!

This August I started in a new school district near Madison, WI. I am still teaching elementary with only a small shift from K-6 to K-4. A new school district means a new-to-me Art room to organize and set up! I spent about three weeks going through every cabinet cleaning and moving things around to make it work best for the way I teach. Then, a few days before school started I got a beautiful new SMART Board too! The room was ready to go for the first day of school on September 1st but there is still a lot of work in my supply closet and kiln room! Luckily those are behind closed doors, so they can wait!

 Below is the full room view...Our carpet meeting area in the front and tables in the back. Look at that beautiful SMART board and wonderfully clean tables and floor!

Made these in summer school a few years ago and finally have the perfect place for them, right outside  my room above the door!

These are the three big "boards" I will be referring to and changing the most this year. Especially my favorite one, the Spotlight Artist. We have pretty minimal actual bulletin boards in the school because almost all the walls are staple-able! IT. IS. AWESOME.

 
My color table identifiers made with my collections of what some would call "junk", front board, rule section, free art area, and my work space (hello happy inspiration wall!)

Two pretty vital sections in my room, Plickers that I will be using daily with 2nd, 3rd, and 4th graders for exit slips and my "I Can" board. Also you can see some of the key tools I use as visual communication for students.....100th day of school--"MISS LAPIN, I CANNOT FIND THE SCISSORS!" Pictures are worth a thousand words.

Have an incredible school year and I cannot wait to start sharing all the things I do with my students this year! Until then...

So I was Going to do a World Wall....

With the feeling of finally starting to feel comfortable in my teaching shoes comes with learning what is and isn't working for me in my classroom and my teaching.

 Last year on that big colorful bulletin board you see below, I had a ton of vocab cards hanging that were really quite great. I got them from here on Teachers Pay Teachers. I referenced them maybe ONCE last year. So at the start of this year I pulled them all down and was going to try the working word wall approach (adding words as I talk about them). That is what the board is set up for in the picture.

As of a few week ago, almost a month into school, the board was still exactly like that. Even though, I had introduced a few vocabulary words that I had a card for and should have added. That was when it hit me. If I have not started this yet-- I'm probably never going to. So after some inspiration from the internet I decided to purchase a world map out of my budget. I found one from School Specialty that was already laminated and was beautiful! 

My goal is to add any artist we talk about during the year, even if its a brief conversation, and connect a string from the artist to where they were from in the world. 

I spent about a half hour at school last Sunday taking down the letters set up for the world wall and putting up the map. I also made 5x7 cards that have an artist's name, birth place, and a few examples of their work. I created them in a word doc and then made a blank one to be used as a template to keep them consistent all year.

Since having the map and artist cards up I used the map as a reference in EVERY class. Even kindergarten. It was great to see students already making connections in just one class!

I finished the week out adding the same map and cards to a huge board in my other building and have been using that with just as much success, leaving me feeling very accomplished. 

You can't win every battle each week, but sometimes the little things are really big wins for yourself. 

Awesome Things (I HOPE I keep doing!)

We all know how it goes, you start the year full force ready to conquer every day of class but inevitably life, stress, exhaustion, and time throw a wrench into things.

Here are some awesome things I am trying to do this year that I hope I keep doing (And will try my absolute best to do so) this year and the next!

PBIS! This is where our PBIS stuff happens in the Art Room. The numbers are velcro and change throughout class based on behavior (That 2 was the first day of art, UGH) the scale is 1-5. We ask the students "strive for 5", and this is part of our district PBIS program. I did this last year and I loved it but I was having to re-make make my charts when we got new teachers so my solution was to laminate everything! The charts were laminated blank and the names separately so all I needed to do was double stick tape the names. Next year, I just have to make new names! I hope I can manage to do at least that, or I might be a lost cause.

Table identification! Last year we just had table colors, this year, I'm trying to infuse a lot more art history. So, tables are also an artist. Tables might be called by their artist name or color so they really have to listen. I hope I can remember to call them by the artists! And do a project that is centered on each artist!

Displayed I CANS! Last year I was writing massive I CANs up on the board for each class and it took a lot of time and I had to re-write it each class and it left little room for me to use my board. The words "I CAN" are magnetic and so are the classes so I can easily move them when necessary. I REALLY hope I keep up with writing the I CANs, they are such a great tool...for me and students!

What do I need?! Once again magnetic, I did supplies that we use on a day to day basis including colored sharpies, erasers, pencils, rulers, oil pastels, crayons, paint brushes, glue stick, bottled glue, watercolors...etc I did not do one for paper and I have a Special Supply one for unique materials. I was already forgetting to change this in the first week but I hope once I get into a routine, I will be able to stick to it and it will answer a lot of questions that students ask me. In addition to this I have them tell me the steps of a project and we write it on the board next to this. That I  REALLY hope to keep up with too!

 "Show Me The Mona Lisa"! This has been all over the art teacher webisphere and I wanted to give it a try. I SERIOUSLY LOVE IT. The older kids think its a little silly but the younger ones are really into it. Whenever they start to get restless or I need to tell them something during work time I say "Show me the Mona Lisa" and they sit up straight, voice zero, and hands folded. Get this version here, otherwise you can easily do your own! I hope, because I love this so much, I will be able to keep up with it!

Handy dandy supply labels! Another question I'm really tired of is "where is the (art supply)" this will hopefully help with that and also keep my supply tables cleaner! I used the same labels for my What Do I Need? so it was no big deal. On the first day of Art we talked about keeping the supplies behind the labels to keep everything where it should be and so the Kinderbeaners can see the pictures! Obviously I can keep up with this because I don't need to do anything else, but I am worried about wear and tear. I may need to replace them half way through...they are laminated and packing taped on so we will see! I hope they survive!

 New "Free Art" excitement! Another Art Teacher webisphere idea/concept floating around is Legos as a free art choice. I also got my hand on geo-boards that teachers were getting rid of when they got new math stuff this year! The Legos were mine as a kid so i'm a little nervous about them being out but I told them how they were mine from when I was little and hopefully that personal connection will keep them around. I am also CRAZY nervous about rubber bands getting flung but I warned them of losing this as a choice if it happens. I hope they can handle this stuff so I can keep using them year after year.

"Write About Art"! This is also a new choice for free Art but will also be used as a consequence for kiddos that are off task. I feel like that is a little contradictory but I have some kids that just LOVE to write, so why would I tell them no? I hope I keep up with using it as a consequence because I believe it will be an effective one.

Le Piece de Resistance! New and improved seating charts! Somewhere in the bloggersphere or Pinterest I saw this idea for seating charts (if anyone knows where let me know)! Instead of writing names in pencil and having to deal with erasing and re-writing for seats that get switched, students that move, or new students, you write the names on tabs that can be moved easily. I write first name, last initial. I have the names blurred for safety reasons here but you can see how it works. I LOVE THIS and have gotten a ton of compliments from other staff on the idea already (but I give credit to the internet-don't worry). It is pretty low cost also, a pack of about 200 is less than $2 if you go with the generic brand from Walmart. I hope I do this each year to save me some sanity of the ever-changing seating chart!

All in all, lots of new things happening and this is just my second and a half year teaching. Can't wait for what the future brings me in my career. I hope its all as awesome as this stuff!

Anything totally awesome that I just HAVE to try in my room that you do?

Classroom Picture Bandwagon!

So many of you were sharing great classrooms I had to share my own!

School #1, I'm only here two days but I love this space! Unfortunately, I can't leave anything out or unlocked because Boys and Girls Club uses it after school everyday from about 3:30 to 6:30 or later. I can't ever stay after school either because of this and also have zero prep when I'm there which makes things REALLY difficult.  I cover all the exposed bookshelves and drying racks and lock my rolling shelves and cabinets when I leave....

View from the door...small office in the back corner that I use as extra secure storage...

From the back of the room...

From the rolling shelves...that side of the room has counters, cabinets, and grown up sinks with step ladders that pull down under them in the cabinets...

Close up of my front wall...

Another close up of my front wall with my desk...

Our "free art" section, some fun stuff in those yellow cabinets!

 School #2, Love this space too but really wish I had an area to store 3D and a rug to sit with my little kiddos. I'm here 4 out of 6 days so I'm much more comfortable leaving things out even though it is a public space to use after school for boy scouts, girl scouts, etc....

Display case right outside my door...

View from the door...that back door leads into a courtyard, how lucky am I ?!

View from the cabinets...reallllly short sinks on that side of the room, no "grown up" sink in the room...

View from the back...

View from the sinks...

View from the front....

Still waiting on my order that includes a world map for each room as a new bulletin board. I'll be tacking where our artists are from that inspire our projects...

Is your classroom used as a public space after school? Sometimes during? I also think about how regular classroom teachers don't have to experience their room as a public space... It is one of the MOST frustrating things about my job. You teach so much about respect to students but things always seem to happen, even under parent/leader supervision....