Photo Album Remixed as Dry Eraser Binder

I was searching through an old photo album over the weekend and noted that my mom had never filled the last 10 pages. I pulled them out of the 3 ring binder and found two great uses for them.

1. Mini White-board lessons. Slip in a few activities and place back in a binder for your art center.
2. Cheap laminating for items that you'd like to keep in a binder.

I know it isn't rocket science, but here are the pictures anyway. I figure if I go through each album and pull the last 3-4 empty pages, I'll have enough for a binder of 10 or so activities at each school.

Lyrics as art

I went a little over board with samples this weekend. These will be gifted or put on etsy! I think I like the idea of having students use quotes or song lyrics.

The Turtles "So happy together

First Corinthians

Am I Done?

Made use of the side of a metal storage cabinet for students to do a visual check of whether or not they are REALLY done. The second part underneath is an enlarged copy from their standards-based report card. Can anyone guess what question I answered too many times today?

Collections

I will gladly credit someone else if this has been said before, but this was the thought in my head tonight as I packed 10 corks, 3 plastic cereal bowls and some empty yogurt containers in my car for tomorrow.

Perspective

Our curriculum map is set up to teach 1 point perspective in 3rd grade and 2 point perspective in 4th grade. Today we read "The Spider and the Fly" which the students loved even though I kept stopping the story to make them admire the drool-worthy illustrations of Tony DiTerlizzi.

Each class completed introductory practice pages last week of drawing boxes (3rd grade) and houses (4th grade). They will begin drawing their houses next week, after I show them some very cool Victorian homes. If the houses end up a bit spooky, well who can blame them?

This is the current bulletin board for at-a-glance reinforcement of the concepts.

October Lessons

Finding it hard to resist the temptation of fall themed projects. Stumbled upon this great book in my daughter's bookshelf and decided to make a go of it. There is a nice anti-bullying undercurrent and it's not overtly halloweenish. Great additional resources on the website for teachers.

Decided the use the book as a jump off point for second grade, who will be learning how to shade with value using pumpkins. Something like this perhaps:

And for first grade they will explore turning shapes into forms as they create crazy pumpkin patches. Maybe something like this (faces optional).

Crayon on colored construction paper. Could push them to work in a color scheme possibly. Obviously need to show a background. Still thinking.

Pencil Sharpening

I took for granted that I required my high school art students to arrive with a pencil. It is now necessary to make sure I have sharp pencils for 28 students all day long. If you're like me, the constant sound of the electric sharpener is grating at best. It also starts a chain reaction of kids who want to walk. I tried handheld sharpeners at each table...for a week. Someone was constantly getting a tip broken off and trying to dig it out with scissors or (even better) their fingers. The solution is I sharpen them. I know I should be working smarter not harder, but this is a small price to pay. I put 2 extra pencils at each table. As pencils get dull or break the student takes a fresh one and puts the dull pencil on the end of their table. At the end of class a student helper grabs the green bucket of sharp pencils and swaps them out into the red "to be sharpened" bucket. It's working. I plan to make sharpening a helper job for a few responsible 4th graders who are usually done early.