The Dusty Art Room

Before break, I challenged a couple students who were done with their projects to make a video of the screen print process we were using to create our fabulous t-shirts in 8th grade.  I handed off the iPads, encouraged them to experiment with the iMovie app and let them go crazy! I gave no other instructions. I was watching the videos later and was completely amazed at the amount of work that was happening all in the span of one class period.  As the teacher, I am down in the trenches with the students, so I rarely get to see the "outside" perspective of my classroom. Here is Emerson's amazing video: Screenprinting! from Carissa Zill on Vimeo .

Every trimester I start off with a name based project to help me learn my student's name.  The last couple years I had students create a self portrait with "crazy hair" that was formed from their name.  It was a successful project, but this year I found a fun project on Pinterest based on color and strong adjectives.  Trying to incorporate more reading and writing into my curriculum, I thought I'd give it a whirl! The original project came from Ms. Runde's room and can be found here .   It was a great lesson to talk about color, line and get used to the painting routine in the art room.  Here are some examples of what first trimester created: What a great project to bring some beginning of the year color to school! I liked the project a lot, but I didn't feel like students had a whole lot of control over the final product.  An inspirational art teacher, Ian Sands , blogged about a tweet he read, "if you get 25 of the sa...

Sometimes, it's hard to let go... Sometimes, it's hard to ignore... Sometimes, it's hard to not help...  Sometimes, it's the most wonderful part of my job... Students are full of ideas, capable of amazing feats & master's of skills I never knew existed! Sometimes, students don't know where to start, where they are going, or how they are going to get there... Sometimes, I want to show them the starting line, lead them along the path & guide them to the finish line...  BUT, students are full of ideas, capable of amazing feats & master's of skills I never knew existed! So, I try hard to let go... I try hard to ignore... I try hard not to help... I try hard to enjoy the most wonderful part of my job... And watch my students CREATE!   I gave my 7th graders their first big challenge of the year: Take a piece of canvas and use these paints to "stain" the cloth...