A Pop of Color

Fifth Graders created these Pop Art Mona Lisas and this paper sculpture quilt.

So colorful and so awesome- come on down and see them at conference time!!

Third Grade Cityscapes

Often I get requests from classroom teachers to do a certain project or subject matter with their students.  I love those requests!  I find that whenever we can make connections between Art and what the students are learning in their core classes, they are more excited about the subject and retain more information- they become experts.  And truth be told, sometimes I run out of ideas for new and exciting subjects, so it's nice to have that variety for me as well as the kids.

I was chatting with a third grade teacher and she was telling me all about the kid's social studies unit where they were studying rural, suburban and urban communities.  So we talked about what kinds of things the third graders could do in Art to connect with that unit.  Cityscapes were the answer!

First, students folded their paper in half, and after looking at many examples of urban architecture (skyscrapers), they drew and colored a skyline on the top half of their paper.

After they were done coloring, we started to spray water on the white half of the paper, one small section at a time.

After each spray, we would close the paper and rub the two sides together.  Then we'd open it up and do another spray.  Here is how the first spray turned out:

Then we continue on down the paper until we have the entire bottom half covered.  And then we have instant reflection!  A cityscape on the water...

More samples:

Back to School!

Alrightie,  folks-  the school year is in full swing and it's time to get back to work and get back to writing.  I am excited to be teaching very near my hometown and living close to my family again for the first time in 20 years.  I am the new Art Teacher for Barrie and Rockwell schools in Fort Atkinson and it's been great to be back in the classroom again after having the great fortune of being able to raise my children for 6 years.  I have had such a warm welcome from staff and parents at both of my schools and am working hard to learn about 600 new names.  My goal is to have them learned by Halloween.  I'll keep you posted on that!!

In the meantime, I am busy going through all of the treasures that have been collected and donated over the last 30 years or so.  What a great collection, but sometimes slightly overwhelming!!  If you have anything you are interested in donating, please feel free to call or email me and let me know what you have.  I will do my best to continue the treasure collecting tradition of my wonderful predecessor!

Currently I could use donations of the following:

• baby wipes (for quick hand cleaning)

• clorox wipes or similar brand (for quick table cleaning) 

These two items will be great for helping to streamline cleanup in the art room and allow the kids to be working on art longer and standing in line to clean up a lot less!

• I am also looking for sheet music to use as the background paper for a few different art projects.  Perhaps old piano books you have lying around?? 

Thank you so much and stay tuned for some awesome artwork!!
Mrs. Keller :)

Workin' at the Preschool, yeah!

For the past week I have been subbing at my daughter's preschool.  It's looking like I have a few weeks of subbing ahead of me as well.  After 5 days I've gotta say... I'm exhausted!!  I'm wondering how does anyone work full time and get everything done?  I've only worked part-time since having children (and that was VERY part-time), and I'm beginning to realize how incredibly spoiled I have been! 

So, anyway, when I started there was a big empty bulletin board.  Nothing but blue paper and green grass.  Well.  THAT won't do.  Won't do at all.  So we went to work, artin' the place up!!  Also, it was "X" week, so we made xylophones and x-rays.  I forgot to take pictures of the x-rays though, which is too bad because they were SUPER cute.  Note to self: document everything.  Anyway, here is a little bit of what we did in preschool last week:

My daughter's owl- the cutest one, of course...

Our finished bulletin board.  Owl's by the 4 year olds, birds by the 3 year olds.

My other daughter's bird.

Xylophones- 4 year olds had to arrange keys largest to smallest.

Busy, busy, busy...



Working at preschool has been fun, and educational, and surprising, with lots of art, playing and singing.  But for some reason the song Carwash by Rose Royce is the only one stuck in my head, and not because we were singing it at all.  I just have this habit of making up new lyrics to old songs and in my world, it goes something like this:  Workin' at the Preschool, Workin' at the Preschool, yeah! 

Sing it with feelin' y'all...

What a Hoot!

Oh, the fun a group of kindergarteners can have with toilet paper tubes, feathers, glue and construction paper.  A little cutting, a little folding, a little gluing, and there you have it.

What a Hoot!!

Let's get a little personal...

A little more about me:

I AM A TEACHER.  I have been an art teacher since 1993.  I taught in a small Wisconsin school district for 12 years before beginning a new adventure- leaving it all behind for Alaska.  I've been back and forth between Alaska and Wisconsin a few times now.  I currently am back in Alaska, living in a town that has no Art program, and so I teach Art on a volunteer basis in my daughter's kindergarten class.  Our family is currently preparing to move back to Wisconsin one more time, and so I am also job hunting.  In preparing to be back in the artroom once again, I have become a member of the National Art Education Association as well as the Wisconsin Art Education Association.  I am excited at the prospect of connecting with other art educators as well as possibly taking on a board position with WAEA.  I also recently found The Art of Education- a great online community for Art Educators.

I AM A MOM.  I have a small brood of art producing, creative playing, book reading, snack eating, mess making children.  They are imaginative, creative, and love taking part in anything I'm doing- crafting, cooking, reading, or anything else.  One of my favorite places to find ideas for them is Pinterest.  I have found sewing projects, craft recipes, fun (and sometimes actually healthy) snacks and decorating ideas here, all to make my kids smile and feed my own creative soul.

I AM A CREATOR.  Among my many hobbies are sewing, painting, scrapbooking, basket-making, gardening, baking, decorating, and now I'm learning to crochet as well.  I need to have a project going- always.  Here are a few of my latest projects:

Denim storage bin. I got the material at the local thrift store- the denim was free! I found the pattern here. I can see making lots and lots of these for holding random things in a super cute, affordable and earth-friendly kind of way.

This is my first crochet project. There is definitely room for improvement, but to a 3 year old... it was beautiful! I bought the pattern here.

I took a cookie decorating class recently. I learned about royal icing, marbling and flooding, among other things. Considering I got a box of 101 cookie cutters as a Christmas gift, and the cookie decorating was really fun, I will do more!! Some of my teacher's recommended favorite cookie sites are here and here and here.

This is a birdhouse I decorated as part of a fundraiser. I bought a plain wooden birdhouse and then could decorate it any way I liked. The original birdhouse was shaped a little differently than I had anticipated, so I struggled a bit, but it's not too far off of my original vision. My favorite part is the butterfly. All the proceeds go to the local emergency shelter. Prizes were awarded for the top money earning birdhouses, and mine won first prize!  Then it was auctioned off and brought in an additional $80.  Sweet!!

These are just a few of my personal interests...

Happy Birthday, Dear Peter!

Febuary was Black History Month.  In honor of the 50th birthday of Ezra Jack Keats' The Snowy Day, the first children's book featuring an African-American protagonist, we created our own snowy days.  Now, in the interest of full disclosure, this lesson was planned for February, but a number of different circumstances prevented that, and we actually did the project in early March.  However, since we have snow around here until May, it will still be "a snowy day" for a long while!

I have always loved the illustrations in this book, particularly the snow.  I love Keats' use of color in the snow and the stamped/printed snowflakes in all sorts of pastel colors.  So simple and beautiful- yet encourages children to think about color in a new way and starts them on the path of realizing they can use more than the realistic or expected color when creating art.  The question is how can I get kinders to get that same look?

First, we tore our paper for snow.  I think hand torn paper gives a great look to a project and honestly for kindergarteners, it's great exercise for fine motor control.  We then used peeled crayons in the colors that Keats used in the snow- blues, pinks and purples- and used the side of the crayon to color the snow.  The white still shows through, but there is color there too.  I think this could be a good place for pastels too, but sometimes little ones get too heavy handed with those, and then there will be NO white left showing!  The white paper is then glued onto a blue rectangle, making sure to match corners.  The kids can then turn their paper either horizontally or vertically, depending on how steep they wanted their sledding hill to be.  Not surprisingly, most boys went for the steepest hill possible!!  They they glued on the body to look like it was sliding down the hill.  The bodies were precut shapes that looked like little Peter in his red snowsuit.  To personalize them, I took their pictures with the digital camera, cropped and sized them, and cut them to fit in the snowsuit, as though it was their face in there with their hood pulled up.  Lastly they decorated with punched snowflakes- again in all the colors that Keats used.

I think they turned out really sweet.  The kids needed encouragement to color dark enough with the crayon on the snow to see it, and to add lots of snowflakes, but they certainly had fun on their snowy, sledding adventures.  Happy Birthday, Peter!!

Creating the texture and color on the snow.                    Paper punched snowflakes.     

Weeeee!!!                                                      Some of our finished work.