Back to School 2

It was a pretty good first week back at school.  Hard to not be with baby but once I got to school and got busy, the day went fast and things seemed pretty normal.  I only heard a few times "Mrs.Morris, you look different with your baby not in your belly!"  Well I would hope so! :)

It's amazing how many catalogues accumulate over 8 weeks!  Cards from students on top.

Back to School

One of my Kindergarten classes made drawings that their teacher mailed to me!

Tomorrow I go back to school.  I am thankful that I was able to take 8 weeks to be home with my baby but I know returning to work will be a huge adjustment for all of us!  I was able to visit both schools with baby last week and stop in some of the classrooms to introduce them.  I guess some of the younger students were really concerned because they thought I had been in the hospital the whole time!  The last time most of the students saw me, I looked like this:

I bet I will get some interesting reactions this week!

I will also have several projects to post after I photograph them.  My sub is not an Art teacher but she can follow a lesson plan and has great classroom management so I know she did a great job.  I can't wait to look through the rest of the projects (I peaked at a few last week) to see how the lesson plans worked out.  I will also be posting tips on preparing for maternity (or other) leave since I have had a chance to talk to my sub and see what helped.

It's going to be hard to leave this face!

Faces iMake

Testing mobile posting! I made this mermaid using Faces iMake with one hand while my baby was eating. I've been doing most of my typing with one hand while multitasking so please excuse errors!



Sent from my iPhone

Artsy iPhone Apps

My husband has had an iPhone for about a year and a half... I never thought I needed one but when we had upgrades available, I got his old iPhone and I love it!  The first application I added is called Faces iMake and it is AWESOME!  The application made the list of top educational apps.  Faces iMake is based on the artwork of Hanoch Piven who I discovered earlier in the school year.  (Check out the Piven-inspired self portraits my 4th grade students made!)  I started with the free "lite" version and decided to add the premium version for $1.99 that lets you have more choices and more control over the elements you add.  You can make your own faces and digital collages and see lots of cool images at FacesiMake.com and on their facebook page.  The picture below was made by my 5 year old niece.  Oh! You can make portraits of your contacts and set it to display when they call!

***I just saw that you can vote for Faces iMake for best artistic app! http://bestappever.com/v/rtst/O/389101695

My other favorite App so far is the free MoMA app that "puts a museum in your pocket".  The App lets you find out about their schedule, programs, etc. but what I really like is that you can search their collection.  You can see images of most of the work in their collection on your phone, read a description, and even zoom in to see details.  You can also read a lot of information about the artist and even search through a giant list of Art terms.  I don't know how many of my students have iPhones or iPads being in a low income area but I am going to recommend both of these applications when I return to school!

Comic- Artistic License

Chewing on Art Supplies?

Ok, is this just my students?  I don't know what the deal is with students putting art supplies in their mouths!  And it's not just the younger students, I think I've caught students in all grades I teach.  I don't get it.  I remind them that those art supplies are used by all the students in the school, so not only is the "chewer" getting a bunch of germs, they are spreading their germs to everyone else!  One day back in November, I caught one of my first grade students sticking a pencil in his mouth and "redirected" his behavior.  About 10 minutes later, he came up to ask me a question, WITH the pencil in his mouth, and he had chewed the metal part off!  I told him he was done for the day- if he wasn't going to respect the art supplies, he wasn't going to make art.  (He was almost done anyway...)  I showed his teacher and the next morning he knocked on my classroom door and brought me this note with a new pencil.  It's kind of funny now, I just don't understand what motivates the gross behavior!

Anybody have any magic tricks to make it stop?

2nd Grade Painting with Scissors

2nd grade students learned about Matisse and created cut paper collages.  The project was pretty much the same as last year, you can read more details on that post.  

My "rules" for this project:

• Use both organic and geometric shapes
• Use a variety of colors
• "Draw" with the scissors, cut shapes directly from paper without drawing in pencil first

When students finished their individual collages, I had them cut a shape and add it to the giant collage.  I cut a big piece of butcher paper and glued some whole construction paper pieces to it.  When it was finished and every student had had a chance to add their shape, I hung it in the hallway with lots of tape on the background and a border of tape around it.  It was a lot easier for me to hang one big piece of art than 100+ to show the project since I was 37 weeks pregnant at the time!  I know that it stayed on the wall for at least the next week and I was on maternity leave after that so I don't know it it's still up or not...  Guess I'll find out in a few weeks!

Art Comics- Big Nate

Phyl at There's a Dragon in my Art Room has been posting Sunday Art comics.  I thought it was a great idea and decided to share some of the comics I saved a few years ago.  (I had an on campus job that was really only busy twice a semester so in part of my free time I read comics online!)  I really like this comic strip, Nate cracks me up and reminds me of some of my students!

You might have to click on the pictures to make them big enough to read!