Meet the Teacher Night

I invite all families to be sure to check out the art room and say hi to me on September 18th at 6:45p.m.  I will be avaliable to show our school community what's happening in our Arts Education program.

I'm Back!!

A new school year is beginning and I am busy getting my classroom ready for all my students. I am excited to be back after my maternity leave and have lots of super ideas for the new year.  I look forward to seeing old and new students.  I am also busy designing new spaces in my room that reflect a more natural "reggio" approach as well as researching more choice based art education techniques.  Hold on to your berets because this year in Arts Ed. is going to be crazy!!

Maternity Leave

I've taken maternity leave until the 2012-2013 school year.  My little girl Emerson Quinn arrived early on August 28, 2011 and I will be spending time away from school for this year.  My hope is to add to the blog when an idea inspires me throughout this busy time... Keep following me!

Grade Five Beyond Reality

The Grade Fives and I are using a resource from the web http://www.artsask.ca/.  This fabulous website takes us through thematic categories, artists, artworks from galleries in Saskatchewan.  It has videos, artist statements, and studio activities that make quality art education easier.  We are exploring the theme Beyond Representation.  To gain an understanding of abstract art they created cardboard sculptures we hotglued and spray painted to be an ode to Douglas Bentham, a metal artist with an artwork titled, Skywalker.  We then looked at the other artists in the theme and came up with four critieria we will include in an abstract artwork.  The critieria was Repetition, Circular Image, using non-traditional painting tools, and using textural items added to paint.  We experiemented today with using non-traditional painting tools which we found around the school/yard.  Check out our video.

Grade One Conversations

I've given my grade ones the task of two teams creating a mural of a farmyard that we would possibly move to as a wrap up to our farm art unit.  The conversations I hear from the two groups at this moment is amazing.  One group is trying to tell the story of the relationships between the animals through the placement of their objects, buildings, and animals.  The other group drew a cat too big and realized it was bigger than the door of their barn.  But to my surprise one student exclaimed, "It's okay because it is in front of the barn and things that are in front are bigger than things that are far away."  What a great comment that shows they actually do retain the little lessons I teach them everyday.  Such a great moment in my teaching day!

Busy Week

Time is winding down at Davison and the busy time is coming to an end.  Club Bravo my musical theatre group will perform "Be A Star" production at our annual Talent Show this Friday.  I look forward to this show every year.  It is always special to see what talent hides in some of our students.  We have selected students off to the University of Regina for the last PLACE activity.  I present my Leadership Academy project to the school division today.  Exciting week, and exhausting!

Holy Cow Time Flies!

I can't believe it is May already.  Here in Saskatchewan we have had flooding due to run off, a blizzard, and now lots of rain..Mother Nature is not finished with us yet.  All classes have wrapped up their Natural Environment projects and I will be posting pictures later. 

I just did a workshop with teachers on Arts Education for their professional development in a research project the University of Regina is doing with our schools.  They worked very hard on all strands of Arts Education to better understand the quality of instruction they can give.  Here is an example of their visual art experience.  We used identity as a jumping off point for idea and a black and white photograph of themselves.  It was very interesting to see what ideas they came up with in a short amount of time (20 minutes).