A Short Animation

Today, I shared this amusing animated film with my students. I think animation is a fine art form which all my students should be familiar with. I began by asking the students to think of all the jobs they could think of that an artist could have; usually at least one student thought of animation. 

This short animation is created by Birdbox Studio in London. After viewing it, the class discussed the purpose of such a film; perhaps Birdbox Studio created it for publicity. If people like it, they will share it with others! As Birdbox Studio gets more hits on their website, more companies may be interested in hiring them to create animated commercials.

As the school year is drawing to a close, this little movie was a fun addition to a few lessons. It's only a minute long; watch and enjoy! The students loved it, and kept requesting, "play it again!" "play it again!"

Elements and Principles of Art

In the past 2 years, I've felt that I've been a little weak in teaching art vocabulary. When my students talk about art, they are quick to share what's happening in the picture, but slow to describe the formal qualities (elements and principles of art). This year, I decided to begin with an elements and principles game for the first day of art class.

I started out by making these posters.

Then, we went through the lists and the students defined the words if they could, and found the elements and principles in the art prints on my walls. The students knew many of the terms, because I usually focus on one element or principle on each art project. 

Then, we played elements and principles bingo! I made bingo sheets with the elements and principles of art in the boxes (a few words got repeated since a bingo card has 24 spaces, not including the free space). Then, I hung up an art print, and the students raised their hands to share an element or principle of art they saw in it. They had to describe how they saw it, for example, "I see balance because the shapes on the left side are the same size as the shapes on the right side." After the student explained his answer, I wrote the term on the board, and all of the students marked it off of their bingo sheet. If they had that word twice, they marked it off two times!

It went really well, and my students are really really using the elements and principles of art in descriptive sentences now! I am feeling really good about the start of this school year!

More Charcoal Snowmen!

Another art teacher blogger, Mr. Kantor in Minnesota, used my charcoal snowman idea with his 3rd graders. He got some great results using vine charcoal (I used Char-Kole, which smudges easily, but gives a blacker black). Check out his students's work at his blog!

Other Great Art Education Blogs

I finally added a blogroll of all of the blogs I am following on my page (scroll down; it's on the right below my followers). I get so many great ideas from other blogs, as well as from Pinterest (which often links back to another art teacher's blog!), so I'm going to share a little bit about a few of my favorites. All of the blogs I added have been wonderful resources for me, but I'm going to take a minute to just highlight a few:

• Wish Upon A Paintbrush by Jackie Q. is a great blog full of creative ideas. Jackie is in her second year of teaching art after graduating in May 2011, just like me.
• Art With Mr. E by Ted Edinger is the first blog I ever started following. Mr. E is the Elementary Art Teacher of the Year in Tennessee, and is always full of great ideas, including his latest: a mixed media mural created by students in 5 different grades!
• Fru Billedkunst by Tina Kejlberg, an art teacher in Denmark, always has beautiful ideas. Because of my Swedish heritage, I can understand almost all of her posts (Swedish and Danish are similar languages). But, even if you can't understand what she writes, her pictures speak for themselves! Also, if you open her page in Chrome, there will be a "translate" option.
• Art Sub Lessons by Snippety Gibbet is a great resource for writing lessons for substitute teachers. Most of her posts are from other art teachers (a few from me!), so if you have a great sub lesson you'd like to share, I'm sure she will be happy to post it.
• Being Cr8iv by Jenni Ward is my favorite resource for clay projects. She has not posted since June, but her archives are full of great ideas that I have used in my own classroom, including what my 5th graders are currently working on (I'll post about it in a few weeks).
• Dream Painters by Elizabeth in Australia is a blog full of great ideas. Elizabeth is a self-employed after school art teacher, and her students always do beautiful work.
• Carol Marine's Painting A Day chronicles Carol's own work, as well as some painting workshops she teaches (for adults).