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.