Everything is Awesome- Lego YAM Bulletin Board

 The Youth Art Month bulletin board at my primary school is Lego themed. Ever since I watched the Lego Movie, I've been wanting to use the "Everything is Awesome" theme for art. This was a good chance!

I downloaded a free Lego font to print off the phrase. Big time saver.

To create the Lego mini figures, I posed an actual figure, photographed it in three positions, projected it onto big construction paper, and traced. My student teacher and I added color with color sticks and cut them out. I made a Lego brick template to trace for the top row and cut rectangles in different lengths to create the rest of the wall. I let early finishers choose a brick on which to write why they like art or why it's important before I stapled them onto the bulletin board.

Here are a few of the students' bricks.

"I care about art because it is fun and you get to paint. It is real fun. Everyone has good art. No one draws bad and draws good. It really means a lot to me and everyone come in peace. It is a lot of fun. It is full of fun."

Minecraft YAM

Tomorrow is the first day of Youth Art Month!

Thursday I finished a Minecraft inspired YAM bulletin board at my intermediate school. I'm glad my student teacher suggested a Minecraft theme because I was stuck!

I googled Minecraft bulletin boards and came across an image that used the "minds craft" phrase and that got me started. I covered the bottom of the bulletin board with brown butcher paper first. Then I cut different green construction papers into squares and rectangles and stapled them in place. Next, I added different brown squares and rectangles on the bottom. Finally, I added the text. I downloaded a free Minecraft font to print out "our" and "awesome art". I opened up the Minecraft logo in Photoshop, separated the "min" from the "craft" and added "DS" in the middle, trying to match the perspective and the style. I traced that onto white paper using my projector and painted the black and gray parts. I cut black construction paper into 1 inch wide rectangles and squares and used that to spell out "Happy Youth Art Month!" 

This was a good project to keep me out of the classroom for a while since my student teacher is still in charge. I only wish I'd glued the shapes instead of stapling so I could just roll it up and reuse the whole design. I may do that when I take it down.

So far the students have been pretty pumped about the bulletin board. However, I have heard several ask why there's no Creeper....

There's No Place Like the Art Room

Here's my Youth Art Month bulletin board... only 2 months late! I saw a "There's no place like..." bulletin board on Pinterest and though I didn't immediately plan to make my own version, it popped into my head when I was trying to plan for YAM. I figured since we're in Kansas it was a good idea! Some Kinders helped me paint a giant rainbow (and only a few argued with the order I wanted the colors to go in) which I cut out for the biggest element on the bulletin board. 

I used a projected picture of Judy Garland's Dorothy onto some poster board to save some time painting  her and finally found a use for some of the TONS of glitter that found their way to my room over the summer. I always save my bulletin board elements so that I can reuse them in the future.

I also used the bulletin board as a place to display the student artwork I selected for the Kansas Youth Art Month show. Each art teacher in the state can show one student work per school in which they teach. I was really proud of this 2nd grader and her artwork. She created a collage background with magazine papers and worked for several weeks on her self portrait drawn with colored pencils. She got a pretty good likeness! I feel like her artwork held up nicely to the traditional projects selected by the other KAEA members.

After a lot of trouble switching my blog over to the new domain, all caused by a silly mistake that took about 5 minutes to correct after I finally got someone to help me, my blog is back up and running. I have TONS to post about in coming months. 

Also, there's only 2 weeks of school left so while I'm excited to be wrapping up another year, I'm feeling the time crunch of wrapping up another year! How long do you have left?

YAM Bulletin Board

I'm a big fan of Peter H. Reynolds' books. They have great messages for kids about creativity, taking chances, and solving problems. Each grade at my K-3rd school completed a project inspired by one of the books. Kindergarten and 3rd grade students made dots, 2nd grade students made "Ish" drawings, and 1st grade students made Sky Color paintings using a wet-on-wet watercolor technique. My bulletin board says:

In Art class we learn to...

Take Chances

Persevere

Make Decisions

Be Confident

Solve Problems

Communicate

Happy Youth Art Month!

I reused the Ramon from "Ish" I made for last year's YAM bulletin board (Happy-Ish Youth Art Month) and added a Vashti from "the Dot" and a Marisol from "Sky Color" to complete the scene. Having the characters on the bulletin board reminds the students of the stories and it was honestly just a lot of fun for me to imitate Reynolds' fun style of illustration. :)

My YAM art show entry was a dot made by a Kindergartener. His learning statement said: 

 I made all colored in circles. I used markers, crayons, and paint. We all made circles but mine was different because I kept going and adding stamps and coloring it in. It was fun putting paint on it. I'm proud of it.

The background of the bulletin board was painted by a couple of 1st grade classes with "sky color"- no blue paint!

The last step was a sign describing the student projects and how they related to the book characters on the board.

Youth Art Month Recap

 Here is a quick recap of what we did for Youth Art Month.

First, I did not attend the NAEA convention in NYC, but a photo of the artwork above was there to represent one of my students in the Kansas booth!

The next 2 photos were my selections for the Kansas YAM exhibit on March 31st.

  

This was created by one of my 4th grade students and she received an Honorable Mention in the Sargent Art contest. (Project here)

 

This was created by a 2nd grade student. (Project here.)

 Last year I tried a YAM contest with my intermediate kids. This year, I was inspired by all the 30 day challenges I see popping up online and designed a YAM Drawing Challenge. I decided on 3-4 tasks for 4 weeks instead of making something every day. I had probably 100 students take home paper but only about 15 turned them in, and of the 15, maybe 8 actually completed every task AND put their name on their paper. I always think I'm being clear but after students are confused I can sort of understand what they were thinking. Several thought they were just supposed to draw one thing each week when I really just meant to work on one at a time, not the whole month at once! Anyway, it was awesome to look through the drawings that came back. I let them decide how to organize the challenge as long as they were all on the same pice of (12x18 inch) paper. I feel like I learned a lot about the students who took this on.

 I wanted to give out a few prizes, not to bribe the students to take on the challenge, but to add to the celebration. Since the idea was to celebrate kids making Art, not just the kids who are "good" at drawing, I didn't pick winners based on the product. I narrowed it down to students who completed the whole challenge, then sorted by grade. I randomly drew one student per grade (4th-6th) out of the stack and let them choose their prize first. I had purchased a few art supply prizes- a small set of color sticks, a watercolor set, and a small set of oil pastels, which I figured would go first.

 I filled in the prize choices with some posters I made (see below) and a bunch of my photographs so that every student who completed the challenge would have something fun.

If you've been here for a while, you know I love my bulletin boards. You can see my YAM bulletin boards here and here.

Did you plan anything to celebrate Youth Art Month? If you teach in Kansas, please tell us by filling out a YAM Documentation Report Form for the KAEA YAM Scrapbook!

YAM- Art is Important Because...

 For the YAM bulletin board at my 4th-6th grade school, I cut out giant letters (from 24x36 inch paper), painted a black border for definition, then invited the students to use multicolored markers to write a sentence about why they think Art is important. I filled in the negative space with some photos of student work, a "March is Youth Art Month" sign, and a couple advocacy signs from NAEA.

This bulletin board is best appreciated when you take the time to read what the students wrote. Most were really excited and thought about what they wanted to write. I did find a few silly comments like "chicks dig art"and "everyday I'm shufflin'"but nothing inappropriate, which is always  relief! Check out the photos below to see some of the students' thoughts.

Apparently I use the words "texture" and "details" a lot.

Happy-Ish Youth Art Month

Happy Youth Art Month! I was passing back artwork when I finally got an idea for my K-3rd grade YAM bulletin board. (I had to run back to the work room to pull artwork back out of teacher mailboxes...) I painted Ramon from Peter H. Reynolds' Ish on a piece of poster board, as well as a sun. 

 The words are painted directly on the white butcher paper. I really wish the butcher paper was a bit more opaque. It bugs me that you can see where the layers overlap but hopefully with all the other stuff going on, nobody else notices. I think people walking by on Friday probably thought I just had a really shaky hand when I started painting. I was trying to match the writing from the book. :)

After I painted the message, I connected the end of the last word to Ramon's pencil. This reminds me that I need to make a little sign- Mrs.Morris YAM Book Recommendations or something that will explain Ish. Somebody said "Happy-ish? Like sort of happy?"

I hung students' Ish drawings around the bulletin board. A few weeks ago, K-2nd grade students listened to and discussed Ish then made Ish artwork. They drew directly with sharpie so that if they made a mistake, they had to make it great and couldn't erase! Everybody thoroughly enjoyed the one class period project. It would be great for the first week of school. The drawings below were made by Kindergarten and 1st grade students. Enjoy!

The story of Capture-Ish: "A caterpillar who is broken-hearted because his friend captured him and is taking him to a zoo." Great vocabulary for a Kinder!