Out with the girls tonight!

:-D

 

 It dawned on me today that I think I am in love with my job.

(I'm awaiting that dip after the honeymoon period though....)
 
I'm just going through the previous plans for Year 6 and I am starting to really think how I can change it now to create my own plans and put my mark on Art education at the school.
 
So...year 6 have Aboriginal Art coming up according to last years plans (remember that I was just going to settle in to the job, work with what I had and then experiment) but they did an aspect of that in Year 3. I know and appreciate that I can progress and show a different aspect to this art. But hey, why not take the opportunity to introduce them to the art of another nation?

I have been in my element this afternoon. It's a day off and all I've been doing is researching Maori art, myths, legends and history. I am now in the process of creating three lesson plans and resources from scratch as I really cannot see much on TES or Pinterest (I  KNOW!!) for instance.

Anyway, doing it from scratch means I can create what I need. This will be in a couple of weeks so hopefully it will come together and I'll post them here.

For you, Mad Murphy! LOVE this picture!

This week’s wisdom…

…is from Andy Warhol. (I’m going to have to get some Pop Art into the curriculum somewhere!).

Think about them…if you can, act on them…and enjoy the results!

Year 4’s Monet Introduction

This was one of the lessons that I was quite nervous about...it's all well and good getting the children to practise and produce various art techniques, fun activities and creative sessions but teaching them about the great masters just squeezed a little more pressure on my newbie shoulders. 

How-EVER! This was the lesson that gave me the realisation that teaching Art is just so rewarding and as fulfilling as being a regular class teacher. I proved to myself that I do have the interest and certainly the passion for this subject and especially teaching it. I've got to know Monet through the planning of the lesson and I realised I was reading about him in the end for my own pleasure! I just hope the kids take some of my interest with them! So today was the start of their recreation of 'Poppies near Argenteuil'. 



When I built up to the announcement that they would be creating their own, they reacted how I expected. And how I wanted them to, actually! It was a unanimous "nooooooo/whaaaaaaat???/Ican'tdothat/tooooohaaaaard" etc. What I wanted to start achieving was a turn-around of their initial negative attitude. And we started to by the end of the session!

All today was was an introduction to Monet and Impressionism, how Monet and his contemporaries painted...they ended up being able to tell me how to recognise a impressionist piece, well, certainly what they'd look for. We also started our paintings with our background wash. We experimented with building up the colour, and effects 
using the sponges and the paintbrushes.

    

I've had to take pictures of the kids to make a contact sheet so I can learn their names. I do well in the lesson and then forget a few of them the following week! At least 120 names...could be worse I suppose! And it's only week 2! ************************************************************************************************************** So, week 2 and we’re working on the foreground. I really focussed on them developing and using their observation skills…how far do the field of poppies stretch? do they have stalks? can you see the lady smiling at you? where is she looking? why can you not see her legs or feet? is she really a stick figure? (seriously...) how many people can you see? etc… This was a very interesting exercise…maybe 4 or 5 children thought about the detail from the outset and this was evident in their work.

We laid the finished pieces out and pretended we were walking around a gallery. We talked about each other’s work , encouraging positive words and thoughts. This was a good exercise, I’ll do this again.

They all enjoyed it and were interested to learn more about Monet. When they learned of his eye operation and the fact that he painted with poor vision for a while, two of the girls took their glasses off (much to my panic!) to see how it would go. One girl loved it! She is probably the artist of the class so I think she enjoyed painting like one of the Masters!


   

A weekend of being Super Mum…

Well, actually that's not entirely true. I could revel in the fact that Bear had a lovely sleepover here with her two besties thanks to my planning and creativity. 

Plan = Painting their own pillowcases, swapping friendship bracelets, decorating her room with streamers and balloons, using window crayons to decorate...well, her window and make their own pizzas. 

Reality = I go to Yoga all day (more on that later), they arrive when I'm still out, they play Barbies, Dad takes them to the pool, they make their own pizzas (one off the list at least!), I explode a huge party popper in her room (glad I'm not OCD), they watch DVDs all evening, more DVDs this morning, then I make them sit down and paint. (I didn't really, honestly, I just wanted to see these fabric paints I bought!). 

    


Now I'm making flapjacks for Bear to take into school tomorrow for her actual Birthday! A great recipe from BBC Good Food...the lemon zest is a great addition.

I think I'll know all about being Super Mum when football season kicks off. I've completed Pops' application to joining MCFL so that'll be every Thursday morning and one evening in the week where I'm taxi driver. (It's not guaranteed he'll be in but watch this space). Both kids have also started at Muscat Pirates, the children's rugby club. No after school clubs for these two!

Beautiful Oops!

(Apologies for the dubious editing in this post...it wasn't playing ball tonight. Not operator error. Honest.)

 

Such a great lesson! Such a good idea! I came across this book by accident, just surfing the Pinterest treasure chest for art inspiration.
 

It's by Barney Salzberg...he's also written other young children's books, 'Animal Kisses' and 'I Love Dogs' .

Already I've had some of the children come to me wanting to start again as they "have made a mistake/done it wrong/don't like it". Unless the project is completely unworkable or right off topic I will always tell them to give it a chance.

I've used the examples of those children to start this lesson with Year 3. I'm doing this with Year 3 as it's their first year in Key Stage 2 and they now have Art with me rather than with their class teacher. They told me they feel nervous as well as excited and that they are worried about making mistakes. PERfect introduction to this book and this session. 

Here's a video of the book. Enjoy!
 


It helps young children to have fun with their mistakes. I gave them a few ripped bits of paper, heaps of scraps and some pens and glue. They set themselves challenges, they even set their classmates challenges. Not one child told me they had no ideas or felt uninspired. Such fresh, unfettered, unrestricted, unassuming minds. I hope that I help them stay so, and as a result I make them feel secure in their art lesson, no fear of making mistakes.

From a scrap of red cellophane

A red squiggly line 

    

A hole ripped in the paper became the mouth