A Day in the Life... of an Art Teacher

• Somewhere between 5:00 and 5:30 I wake up and get ready for school
• 6:30 - Oliver wakes up and watches Disney, gets dressed, and drinks chocolate milk and has breakfast (usually toast and honey)
• 7:00 - I eat breakfast and pack lunch
• 7:20 - Leave the house and head to school
• 7:30 - Bell rings and I monitor the halls until 7:45
• 7:45 - Planning starts. I'm usually getting supplies ready for classes depending on the project. If we are painting or doing collage I make sure to prepare supplies at the end of the previous day.
• 8:30 - Reading group with 4-6 first graders until 9:30
• 9:30-10:15 Kindergarten (currently working on Picasso portraits)
• 10:15-11:00 4th Grade (currently working on perspective and cityscapes)
• 11:00-11:15 small break between classes usually spend preparing supplies for next class/restroom break/ mailbox check/ email check/ sometimes eating lunch fast!
• 11:15-12:00 3rd Grade (currently working on perspective and cityscapes)
• 12:00-12:30 Lunch!
• 12:30-1:15 1st Grade (Picasso portraits currently)
• 1:15 - 1:30 small break preparing for the next class/ restroom/ etc
• 1:30-2:15 2nd Grade (Picasso portraits currently)
• 2:15-2:30 Cleanup/ preparation for classes the next day
• 2:30-3:00 Hall duty while the kids leave school
• 3:00 Head home /run errands/ go to the park/ grocery store/ homework/ cook dinner or eat out/ laundry/ dishes/ plan lessons/ do Oliver's homework/ batting lessons/ checking social media/ uploading Instagram photos/ etc.
• TBall has started so 2 nights a week is spent at the ballpark
• 8:00 Oliver's bedtime unless we are still playing ball
• 9:30 My bedtime!

We art teachers like to stay busy :)

Follow my Instagram and Instacanvas... hey_its_rachel

Picasso Faces

One of my favorite portrait lessons to do with my K-2 students is a Picasso Portrait lesson. They think it's fun to make silly faces! I love the reaction I get when I show my PPT of different Picasso portraits. It's mostly, "Ewww!," "Ahhhh!," "That's weird!," etc. It's always a fun lesson! We discuss how Picasso usually combined two different views of a person and that's why the faces look like they do. I do a step-by-step guide with them while drawing the face and the features. We discuss different way to draw eyes, noses, mouths, eyebrows, hair, etc. We outlined our pencils lines with a black crayon and then I let them color it as wild as they wanted! We then practiced our cutting and gluing skills, focusing really hard on cutting around the head perfectly and then gluing the edges very well. Here are a few examples of one of my kindergarten classes work...

Falling for Foreshortening

As much as I wish I could, I cannot take credit for this lesson. I do apologize because I'm not sure who is to credit because I have seen it on so many Pinterest boards and blogs. I knew when I found this lesson back in August that I HAD to try it with my kids. And they LOVED it! It turned out so, so good! We discussed foreshortening and I gave them examples and had them give me examples. Then we traced both shoes and hands and drew in their self portrait behind the shoes and fingers. I just love how these turned out! I gave them the option to trace their lines using a sharpie or just a pencil, and they could also color all or parts of their self portrait. This lesson was done by my 2nd, 3rd, and 4th grades. 

I purchased a couple of new books from Amazon to add to my book collection in my classroom!

Joan Miro

I have absolutely loved this lesson! Since Joan Miro is our artist of the month, I decided to do a lesson for K-2 based on his work. The results have been super! I have also decided that each lesson will have a different class displayed in my bulletin board. This time I chose Ms. Lisa Renfroe's Kindergarten class! Great work guys!

We began with a PPT and discussed several of Miro's works. We then drew out lines and shapes using a pencil. After I checked the students work, they began to trace over ALL their lines with a Sharpie marker. After everything was traced they colored in the SHAPES. They then finished by using watercolor pallets to paint the background.

The whole class on the board!

Love the human figure :)

Happy, happy, happy!

I absolutely adore my over-the-door drying rack that was purchased for me from Dick Blick! It's perfect to fit all of my classes paintings for a day! Find The Original Rackaway Drying Rack here!

Rene Magritte

Yay! Another artist study! I love teaching my students about different artists and creating projects based on their work. They had a blast discussing "The Son of Man" by Magritte. I had one girl say that the apple fell off a tree and got stuck on his hat and that's why it was in front of his face. Great logic! I had each student visually divide their paper in 1/3 (hello, math!) and draw a hat at the top, their favorite food in the center, and a shirt on the bottom. They are turning out so well! Here's a few in the process...

 She's very detailed and one of my best students!

Yuck! That water needs to be changed! 

Fab strawberry! 

And a few that have been completely finished...

He really did a great job personalizing his portrait.

4th Grade Bulletin Board

Current Bulletin Board

I'm loving all the color being displayed out in the hall right now! In my previous post, I mentioned the oil pastel cityscapes completed by my K-2nd classes. For the left side of my board I picked a few from each grade to display. Most didn't get a chance to finish the first day, but we have had a catch up day since then and now everyone's cityscape is complete! 

On the right side of the board I put up a few oil pastel (3rd-4th) or crayon (K-2nd) hearts with a watercolor background. We completed this project the week before Valentine's day, and I let the students take them home if they wanted to give to someone special. A few chose to leave them in their portfolio for the art show. They all looked so great!